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Today we’re looking at a court decision nixing a shutdown of the the Dakota Access Pipeline, President Biden doubles down on key climate provisions in the White House infrastructure plan and Group of 7 countries commit to restrictions on coal funding.
ANOTHER BITE AT DAPL: Judge denies tribal request for temporary Dakota Access Pipeline shutdown
A federal judge has denied a request from tribes to temporarily shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline while it undergoes a court-mandated environmental review.
Judge James Boasberg wrote in an opinion issued Friday that in order to get a shutdown, the tribes “must demonstrate a likelihood of irreparable injury from the action they seek to enjoin — to wit, the pipeline’s operation.”
“Plaintiffs have not cleared that daunting hurdle,” he wrote.
The story so far: The pipeline is set to undergo an environmental review following a ruling from Boasberg, an Obama appointee, last year, that said that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) should have conducted a rigorous Environmental Impact Statement before granting the pipeline a permit to go underneath a reservoir on the Missouri River.
In his initial ruling, the judge also said that the pipeline should be shut down while the review is underway.
An appeals court upheld the need for the review, but reversed the temporary shutdown.
Read more about the decision here.
NO CAPITO-LATION: Biden holds firm on climate provisions in infrastructure counterproposal
President Biden is holding firm on energy and climate provisions in the White House infrastructure proposal but has expressed a willingness to cut some research and development funds, according to a memo to Senate Environment Committee ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) obtained by The Hill.
In the memo, which followed a Tuesday meeting between Biden and Capito, Biden wrote that he was “prepared to take off the table the manufacturing, research and development (R&D) and innovation elements of his Jobs Plan” and seek to pass them in separate legislation.
However, the memo lists several environmental and energy aspects of the plan where Biden said Capito’s counterproposal falls short, including investments in resilience against the effects of climate change.
What does the White House say is missing?: “The President’s plan invests in hardening our transportation and other physical infrastructure, as well as in building natural systems that protect our communities during extreme weather events,” the memo states.
It further highlights what it said were environmental issues Capito’s proposal eschews entirely, including reclamation and restoration of Superfund sites and abandoned mines and oil and gas wells. It also includes the White House plan’s energy sector investments in this category.
The memo goes on to reaffirm Biden’s commitment to paying for the plan through an increase in the corporate tax rate. It also reiterates the administration’s opposition to an increase in the gasoline tax or a miles-traveled user fee, saying such an increase would violate the president’s pledge not to increase taxes on Americans making under $400,000. The Hill has reached out to Capito’s office to clarify whether the senator raised the prospect of such a fee or increase in the meeting.
Read more about the memo here.
LIKE A G-7: G-7 countries commit to restrict international coal funding
Environment and climate leaders from Group of Seven (G-7) countries, made up of several advanced economies, said Friday that they will aim to put restrictions on funding for international power produced from coal.
“Recognising that continued global investment in unabated coal power generation is incompatible with keeping 1.5°C, we stress that international investments in unabated coal must stop now and commit to take concrete steps towards an absolute end to new direct government support for unabated international thermal coal power generation by the end of 2021,” the officials said in a joint policy paper.
The officials from the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan also reaffirmed their country’s 2016 commitment to phase out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies by 2025.
In 2013, then-President Obama moved to restrict U.S. financing of coal production abroad.
An analysis from the Natural Resources Defense Council showed that public institutions in Japan were among the largest financers of overseas coal projects as of 2016, though the country put additional restrictions on such financing last year.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan expressed support for the joint statement in a statement of his own.
“I’m proud to endorse the G7 Climate and Environment Ministers Statement, which includes concrete steps to combat the urgent threat of the climate crisis while lifting up vulnerable communities across the world,” Regan said.
Read more about the joint statement here.
WHAT WE’RE READING:
EPA Air Quality Monitors Show Repeated Excesses of Hydrogen Sulfide, The St. Croix Source reports
Documents reveal natural gas chaos in Texas blackouts, E&E News reports
RWE and BASF plan $4.9 bln wind power project, Reuters reports
Oil and gas funding complicates New Mexico’s clean energy transition, Searchlight New Mexico reports
‘There’s no higher ground for us’: Maldives’ environment minister says country risks disappearing, CNBC reports
ON TAP NEXT WEEK:
On Tuesday:
- The House Energy & Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on legislation to ensure drinking water is safe
- The House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on the status of drought conditions throughout the Western U.S.
On Wednesday:
- The Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies will hold a hearing to examine budgeting for the future of forest management, focusing on rethinking resiliency.
- The Senate Energy and Natural Resources’ Subcommittee on National Parks will hold a hearing on the state of the National Park system
On Thursday:
- The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology will hold a hearing on the Science and Research Enterprise of the Department of Energy
ICYMI: Stories from Friday….
Biden holds firm on climate provisions in infrastructure counterproposal
Judge denies tribal request for temporary Dakota Access Pipeline shutdown
G-7 countries commit to restrict international coal funding
Climate change tied to over $820 billion in health care costs per year: report
QUOTE OF NOTE: “If you have to make up stuff like that, you must have a very losing argument, number one. And secondly, if people think switching their hamburger, or going down to less meat, is the entire solution to climate change, we’re all in a lot of trouble.”
-White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy on false reports the Biden administration sought to restrict meat consumption in an interview with “Axios on HBO” set to air Sunday
OFF-BEAT AND OFFBEAT: Like a good neigh-bor