Sources say Christie won’t be RNC chair under Trump

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in background cheering Trump at podium – Photo by EPA – Ryan Stone

Gov. Chris Christie will not be named chairman of the Republican National Committee as President-elect Donald Trump assumes the White House, two sources with knowledge of the situation confirmed to NJ Advance Media on Thursday morning.
Christie had been lobbying for the position over the last week, but he and Trump came to the decision mutually, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss the scenario candidly.
One source close to Christie said Trump’s team is continuing to talk to the New Jersey governor, a longtime Trump friend and adviser, about various other positions in the incoming administration.But, the source noted, Christie wants to serve out his second and final term as governor — which ends Jan. 18, 2018.
The source added that Christie is close to Trump and will “certainly remain as an informal adviser.”
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Miners’ health care and pension benefits are on the line

Miners march in Waynesburg, Pa. in April, 2016 – Photo by Andrew Rush, Post-Gazette
The fate of health care and pensions of thousands of coal miners is taking center stage this week as Congress struggles to pass a funding bill by Friday to keep the government open for the next four months.
In the latest development, the Republican majority in the Senate has agreed to extend health care benefits — but only for four months.  
Congress is entering the final days to pass the Miners Protection Act, which was proposed more than a year ago to direct $3 billion over the next 10 years into health care and pension funds for miners. The money would prop up United Mine Workers of America pension funds, relied on by more than 89,000 miners nationwide, including 13,000 miners in Pennsylvania.
An extension would honor a promise by the federal government dating back to the Truman administration to guarantee UMWA retirement funds. Without action, roughly 17,000 miners across the country would lose their health care benefits later this month, and an additional 4,000 would lose them early next year.

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The move to stuff an extension of health care benefits into a short-term appropriations bill was announced by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Tuesday. The bill is required to fund the government beyond the end of the year and must be approved before Congress breaks for holiday.
Linking the miners’ health care to the short-term funding bill angered supporters of the bill, including Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey, who called it a “profound betrayal” of miners.
“This proposal does nothing to protect pensions and will extend health coverage for so short a time that recipients would be notified almost simultaneously that they are both eligible for benefits and that their benefits will terminate,” Mr. Casey wrote. 
Mr. Casey said he’s incredulous the full act was dropped following the election of Republican Donald J. Trump, who won support among large swaths of coal country by promising to enact miner-friendly policies. Mr. Casey wrote a letter to Mr. Trump last month that urged the president-elect to encourage his party’s leadership to back the measure. Of the bill’s 18 co-sponsors, eight are Republicans.
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PADEP appeals court hold on sections of new drilling rules

Natural gas gathering lines in the Tiadaghton State Forest. 
Jon Hurdle reports for StateImpact:
Pennsylvania is appealing a court ruling that temporarily blocked sections of new gas drilling regulations, saying they are “commonsense” rules designed to protect the public and took years to develop with the help of the industry.
The Department of Environmental Protection filed the appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday after a Commonwealth Court judge last month put a hold on some parts of the Chapter 78a regulations on unconventional natural gas development.
The DEP is urging the state’s highest court to allow implementation of regulations governing public resource protections, monitoring for orphaned and abandoned wells, well-site restoration, and standards for water storage impoundments.

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Those sections were put on hold by Commonwealth Court Judge Kevin Brobson last month following a lawsuit from the gas industry’s trade group, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, which argued in its first-ever suit against the state that the rules are onerous, costly, and offer little environmental benefit.
But Brobson let stand other sections of the rules dealing with spill cleanups, onsite waste processing, and a new requirement to file monthly waste reports. The rules, which took effect in October, are the first revision of Pennsylvania’s oil and gas regulations since the shale boom began in the mid-2000s.
In a statement accompanying its appeal, the DEP’s Acting Secretary, Patrick McDonnell, said the rules are intended to protect public facilities including schools and playgrounds, and should be allowed to stand.
“These commonsense regulations were the result of five years of public participation, including dozens of meetings with natural gas industry leaders and trade groups, as well as nearly 25,000 Pennsylvanians who made their voices heard by providing public comments,” McDonnell said.
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EPA moves to ban aerosol de-greasers, spot removers

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced that it 
is proposing to ban certain use of the chemical trichloroethylene (TCE) due to health risks when used as an aerosol de-greaser and as a spot removal agent in dry cleaning.


The proposed rule was issued under section 6(a) of the Toxic Substances Control Act, as amended by the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act.

Specifically, EPA is proposing to prohibit the manufacture (including 
import), processing, and distribution in commerce and to 
prohibit commercial use of TCE for aerosol degreasing 
and for spot cleaning in dry cleaning facilities. 

EPA is also proposing to require manufacturers, processors, 
and distributors, except for retailers, to provide downstream 
notice of these prohibitions throughout the supply chain, and
to keep limited records. Comments on the proposed rule must
be received 60 days after date of publication in the Federal 
Register.
Last week, EPA announced the inclusion of TCE on the list 
of the first ten chemicals to be evaluated for risk under TSCA. 
That action will allow EPA will evaluate the other remaining 
uses of the chemical. Today’s action only proposes to ban 
certain uses of the chemical.
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Trump picks fossil-fuel friend to lead the EPA he’s suing

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt arriving at Trump Tower in Manhattan on Wednesday

 PHOTO: JOHN TAGGART/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY

Coral Davenport reports today in the New York Times:

President-elect Donald J. Trump has selected Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general and a close ally of the fossil fuel industry, to run the Environmental Protection Agency, a transition official said, signaling Mr. Trump’s determination to dismantle President Obama’s efforts to counter climate change.

Mr. Pruitt, a Republican, has been a key architect of the legal battle against Mr. Obama’s climate change policies, actions that fit with the president-elect’s comments during the campaign. Mr. Trump has criticized the established science of human-caused global warming as a hoax, vowed to “cancel” the Paris accord committing nearly every nation to taking action to fight climate change, and attacked Mr. Obama’s signature global warming policy, the Clean Power Plan, as a “war on coal.”

Mr. Pruitt, 48, who has emerged as a hero to conservative activists, is also one of a number of Republican attorneys general who have formed an alliance with some of the nation’s top energy producers to push back against the Obama regulatory agenda, a 2014 investigation by The New York Times revealed.

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At the heart of Mr. Obama’s efforts to tackle climate change are a collection of E.P.A. regulations aimed at forcing power plants to significantly reduce their emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution. It will not be possible for Mr. Trump to unilaterally cancel the rules, which were released under the 1970 Clean Air Act. But it would be possible for a legally experienced E.P.A. chief to substantially weaken, delay or slowly dismantle them.

As Oklahoma’s top law enforcement official, Mr. Pruitt has fought environmental regulations — particularly the climate change rules. Although Mr. Obama’s rules were not completed until 2015, Mr. Pruitt was one of a handful of attorneys general, along with Greg Abbott of Texas, who began planning as early as 2014 for a coordinated legal effort to fight them. That resulted in a 28-state lawsuit against the administration’s rules. A decision on the case is pending in a federal court, but it is widely expected to advance to the Supreme Court.


 
 
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Philly’s Sunoco has deep-dollar stake in Dakota pipeline

Standing Rock encampment in North Dakota







Andrew Maykuth reports for the Philadelphia Inquirer:

The Obama administration’s decision to block completion of the
contentious Dakota Access Pipeline has direct impact on Sunoco Logistics
Partners LP, the Newtown Square company that would operate the $3.8 billion
crude-oil pipeline. 

Sunoco
Logistics and its parent company, Energy Transfer Partners LP, which are on the
hook for more than $2 billion in the project, denounced the decision by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to block the pipeline from crossing the Missouri
River as a “purely political action.

“This is
nothing new from this administration, since over the last four months the
administration has demonstrated by its action and inaction that it intended to
delay a decision in this matter until President Obama is out of office,” the
companies said in a statement released late Sunday.

President-elect
Donald Trump’s spokesman on Monday said the new administration will review the
permit denial after it takes office. The Corps declined to grant ETP an
easement to build under Lake Oahe, a dammed part of the Missouri river in North
Dakota. The agency said it would begin a lengthy environmental review to
determine whether to reroute the pipeline.

Trump’s
spokesman Jason Miller on Monday told reporters he pipeline “is something we
support construction of, and we will review the situation when we are in the
White House to make the appropriate determination at that time.”
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