Fossil Fuels - Climate Extra

Bolstering Future Challenges, DOE Finds LNG Exports Hike GHGs, Costs

A long-awaited Energy Department (DOE) study has found that increasing liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports would increase greenhouse emissions and consumer costs, with the analysis potentially offering justification for challenges against future Trump administration LNG project approvals. “[T]he climate impact of ever greater exports of LNG merits a close and rigorous focus, especially in a world that needs to quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm writes in an undated letter released alongside the Dec. 17 study ...

FERC Backs Industry Petition Urging D.C. Circuit To Reverse LNG Vacatur

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is siding with industry and asking the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reverse a three-judge panel’s vacatur of its approval of a liquified natural gas (LNG) project the panel said was warranted due to the “severity” of the flaws in FERC’s environmental review, particularly on environmental justice (EJ) grounds. FERC revealed its position for the first time in a Dec. 9 brief in City of Port Isabel,...

Environmentalists Seek Guardrails For Advanced Methane Monitoring

Environmentalists are urging that EPA adopt multiple safeguards alongside future efforts to boost use of advanced and emerging monitoring technologies for quantifying methane under the agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP), even as they and other observers endorse greater reliance over time on such technologies. Advanced monitoring technologies “have enormous potential value for programs such as the” GHGRP, the group Clean Air Task Force (CATF) writes in Nov. 27 comments to an EPA request for information (RFI) to inform a...

DOE Official Offers Details About Upcoming GHG Study For LNG Exports

A top Energy Department (DOE) official is providing new details about the contents and timing of a major update to the analysis the department uses to determine if liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports are in the “public interest,” while also urging incoming Trump officials not to immediately reject the analysis. The Biden administration is poised to release a study by the middle of this month for a 60-day public comment period, DOE fossil energy chief Brad Crabtree said during Dec...

FERC Scraps Prior Precedent Regarding Gas Projects’ GHG ‘Significance’

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is scrapping a years-old precedent that environmentalists have been attempting to use to force the agency to determine if greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas infrastructure projects are “significant,” underscoring the agency’s reluctance to make such findings. The decision comes in the context of an order pausing FERC’s approval for several months of the major Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project, as officials conduct supplemental National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)...

Industry Study Of LNG’s GHG Emissions Could Portend Trump Reversal

A gas industry study finding relatively low greenhouse gas emissions from certain supply chains for liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports is offering one example of how the incoming Trump administration might reverse expected findings from the Biden administration warning of high emissions from the fuel. The new study , published Nov. 5 in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering and funded by Cheniere Energy, includes reference case GHG emissions intensities that are 22−53 percent lower than prior studies for U.S...

Petitioners’ Claims In Methane Suit Could Be Roadmap For Trump EPA

GOP-led states and industry groups are detailing legal claims against the Biden EPA’s oil and gas methane standards, including arguments that the standards improperly intrude on states’ ability to set existing source requirements and that the rule’s controls for numerous equipment types are arbitrary or otherwise flawed. The Nov. 25 opening briefs in State of Texas, et al. v. EPA, et al. , pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, come even as industry...

D.C. Circuit Judges Appear Split Over DOE Gas Appliance Efficiency Rules

A three-judge D.C. Circuit panel appeared split during oral arguments in a case challenging the Energy Department’s (DOE) energy efficiency standards for furnaces and water heaters, including wrestling over whether the court’s decision could have the broader effect of undercutting a suite of additional appliance efficiency rules. During Nov. 21 oral argument in American Gas Association (AGA) v. DOE , one judge appeared unpersuaded by gas groups’ claims against the rules, while another seemed more open to claims that the...

Oil & Gas Producers Detail Push To Scale Back Biden EPA Methane Rule

Independent oil and gas producers are detailing multiple ways in which they hope the incoming Trump EPA will scale back Biden-era methane standards for the sector, acknowledging that the next administration cannot eliminate the rule because the agency faces a congressional mandate to issue standards for new and existing sources. The suggestions for easing the rules -- included in a Nov. 19 memo to the Trump transition team from the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) -- also come as...

Trump Selects North Dakota Gov. Burgum To Head Interior Department

President-elect Donald Trump has selected North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) to head the Department of Interior (DOI) next year, with the pick winning quick praise from Capitol Hill Republicans as he is expected to ramp up fossil fuel production and related policies. “Governor Burgum knows what it takes to unleash American energy. He recognizes how important our federal lands are for energy and mineral production, grazing, and recreation,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), who is poised to take over...

Biden officials press EU to deem U.S. gas as sufficient on methane

Top Biden officials at EPA and the Energy Department (DOE) are reportedly pressing European Union officials to conclude that gas exports achieving federal methane standards also comply with Europe’s environmental standards for gas imports. The effort, first reported by Reuters , could serve as one factor that protects the broad contours of EPA’s methane policies despite President-elect Donald Trump’s deregulatory agenda. “We understand that this process will take time. However, we would like to begin discussions as soon as...

EPA Finalizes Rule For IRA’s Methane Fee Considered Likely Trump Target

EPA is finalizing its rule implementing the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) methane emissions fee, cementing the policy for now even as the rule and its underlying statutory basis are considered highly vulnerable to rollback by the incoming Trump administration and a likely GOP Congress. Even so, the Biden administration’s Nov. 12 release of the rule coincides with a U.S.-China summit on reducing methane and other potent greenhouse gases, which officials are hosting as part of broader international climate talks in...

Amid Policy Upheaval, D.C. Circuit Declines To Stay FERC’s LNG Approval

A D.C. Circuit panel is rejecting calls from environmentalists and others to pause the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) approval of what is expected to be the country’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal, while setting a briefing schedule for the litigation that extends to April. The case comes amid expectations that the incoming Trump administration will seek to speed approvals of future LNG exports, while Biden officials at the Energy Department (DOE) are reportedly scrambling to complete a...

Trump EPA Faces ‘Complicated’ Path For Any Methane Rule Repeal Effort

President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to pursue a sweeping deregulatory agenda at EPA comes as some observers say the incoming administration faces a heavy lift for any bid to fully scrap oil and gas methane emissions rules as officials attempted during his first term, due to the rules’ complexity and prior Hill action rebuking the initial Trump rollback. Even so, one industry source sees “other avenues” to ease the rules more narrowly, including via formal reconsideration of various provisions of the...

Environmentalists Push Biden On Aggressive ‘Lame Duck’ Climate Steps

Environmentalists are pushing the Biden administration to take a series of actions in its final months to advance climate policy before the incoming Trump administration takes office in late January, including adopting key EPA rules and other policies, curbing gas exports, speeding disbursement of clean energy funds and other steps. “It is time for the lame duck Biden administration to take as many protective actions as it can, and to clear away as many tools as possible that the Trump...

DOE Urges 5th Circuit To Reverse Decision Blocking LNG Approval Pause

The Energy Department (DOE) is urging the 5th Circuit to vacate a district court’s decision halting the department’s pause in approving additional liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, while Biden officials continue to weigh the effects of additional exports on the climate and the economy. DOE is making several procedural arguments for why the appellate court should block the lower court’s injunction halting the LNG permitting pause, which the department began in January. “The district court lacked jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ abstract...

FERC Backs Developer’s Push To Overturn D.C. Circuit Pipeline Vacatur

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is supporting a developer’s push for the full D.C. Circuit to rehear a three-judge panel decision vacating the agency’s approval of a gas pipeline in New Jersey, arguing the court wrongly held that it should have determined if the project’s greenhouse gases are “significant.” The panel’s July 30 decision in New Jersey Conservation Foundation, et al. v. FERC, et al . is one of several cases that explore the agency’s mandates under the National...

Oil & Gas Group Readies Deregulatory Agenda But Warns Of GOP Overreach

A trade group representing oil and gas producers plans to seek modification or repeal of numerous Biden-era climate and other rules should GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump win the election, even as it is warning members that a potential Republican sweep might spur White House or congressional overreach that creates business risks. But much of the American Exploration and Production Council’s (AXPC) deregulatory agenda would struggle if Democratic nominee Kamala Harris wins the presidency, with the industry in that scenario...

Developers appeal D.C. Circuit vacatur of FERC LNG approval

Developers seeking to build a liquified natural gas (LNG) export project are asking the full D.C. Circuit to reverse a three-judge panel’s vacatur of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) approval of the project, warning that the decision would spur dire economic harm in the energy sector if allowed to stand. In separate Oct. 21 petitions, Rio Bravo Pipeline Co. and Rio Grande LNG urged the court to grant panel rehearing or rehearing en banc to overturn the precedent-setting...

Judges Appear Skeptical Of Environmentalists’ Challenge To LNG Review

D.C. Circuit judges appeared skeptical during Oct. 21 arguments of environmentalists’ challenge to the Energy Department’s (DOE) climate analysis of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project, suggesting they believe officials sufficiently grappled with uncertainties about what would replace the project’s fuel if it were not built. Assessment of this “substitution effect” -- or whether a project’s LNG would otherwise be replaced by coal, other gas supplies, renewables, conservation efforts, or some other source -- is a crucial element of...

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