Transition 2021 - Climate Extra

California Floats Actions To Spur ZEV Deployment Amid Trump Pushback

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) and other state agencies are outlining a variety of recommendations to spur deployment of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) through incentives and new regulations -- part of the state’s continuing efforts to counter Trump administration moves to squelch the state’s ZEV policies. “The priority recommendations reflected in this document will help guide near-term actions, and help inform legislative efforts to ensure the state stays on track to meet its air quality and climate goals,” said CARB...

Environmentalists Attack CARB’s Late LCFS Changes Boosting Hydrogen

Environmentalists are attacking California Air Resources Board (CARB) officials for proposing significant last-minute changes to the state’s low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) that bolster the hydrogen sector, charging the revisions go beyond correcting deficiencies flagged by the Office of Administrative Law (OAL). “These proposed changes are contrary to California’s climate goals and would further entrench California in polluting oil and gas extraction and refining, leaving fenceline communities to bear the brunt of heightened pollution burdens and ever-increasing climate harms,” asserted Lauren...

Former EPA Staff, Cities Join EPA In Defense Of MY27-32 Auto Standards

Former EPA officials, city leaders and others are lending their weight to EPA’s defense of its multi-pollutant standards for model year 2027-2032 vehicles, arguing the policy is in line with a long array of prior rules and that it should be preserved to address climate and local air pollution harms. The pitch in Dec. 6 amicus filings to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit provides additional pushback to claims by Republican-led states and liquid...

Trump picks Bessent for Treasury amid debate over IRA credits

President-elect Donald Trump has selected hedge fund manager Scott Bessent to be secretary of the Treasury Department next year, putting him a key position to overhaul multiple implementing rules for the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) low-carbon energy tax credits. The selection could portend multiple efforts to make IRA credits more difficult to access, given Bessent’s prior statements that the IRA is a “doomsday machine” for the federal budget, according to an E&E News report . In addition to potential...

CARB Weighs ZEV Truck Rule Changes As Debate Over Shortage Heats Up

California air officials are poised to expand some compliance flexibilities in their Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) regulation, as debate intensifies about whether the state’s stringent ZEV and other emissions rules are causing a shortage of new diesel trucks on the market. “As businesses face unexpected challenges securing clean trucks, and communities face continued dirty air and sick kids, it’s time for California to make sure everyone in the industry is playing fair,” said Craig Segall, senior vice...

White House Touts Initial Picks For $1.7 Billion To Retool Plants For EVs

The Biden administration has selected nearly a dozen “shuttered or at risk” auto manufacturing plants that will share up to $1.7 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to convert toward production of partially or fully electric vehicles (EVs) and related supply chains. The Energy Department’s (DOE) July 11 announcement of the preliminary awards is underscoring continued efforts by the Biden administration to distribute as much IRA funding as possible before the November elections. Even so, the grants are still...

Schatz Cites ‘Very Real Possibility’ Permitting Deal Fails This Congress

A key advocate for legislation to speed transmission needed for clean power is tempering expectations that lawmakers will strike a deal on relevant permit fixes this Congress, pledging to push hard on the issue but arguing House Republicans might be more focused on political messaging than reaching a compromise on the issue. “Although I think this is an essential aspect of moving forward, I don’t want to catastrophize the very real possibility we are not going to enact anything in...

Manufacturers Blast EPA Bid To Regulate Trailers’ GHGs Despite Ruling

Trailer makers are charging that EPA’s proposal to update air emissions limits for heavy-duty trucks is also seeking to regulate their products’ greenhouse gas emissions even after a federal appeals court held the agency lacks statutory authority to do so. The Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association (TTMA) successfully sued EPA over including trailers in an Obama-era truck GHG rule, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluding in a Nov. 12 opinion that trailers are not...

Environmentalists back EPA in challenges to vehicle GHG rule

Environmental and public interest groups are seeking to intervene on behalf of the Biden administration in litigation by Republican-led states and others contesting EPA’s recently final vehicle greenhouse gas standards, as a federal appeals court is formally consolidating the legal challenges. “Movants possess legally protectable interests in the dispositions of any petitions for review of the Final Rule,” says a March 2 motion to intervene from Conservation Law Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental Law & Policy Center, Natural Resources Defense...

EPA Sees Opportunity To ‘Reimagine’ Next Round Of Auto GHG Rules

A top EPA official is suggesting that the agency’s forthcoming rulemaking setting long-term greenhouse gas standards for light-duty vehicles presents an opportunity to “reimagine” the structure of the agency’s program, floating several key questions the agency is weighing as well as potentially novel policy options. “It’s been more than 10 years since we’ve really thought about or taken action on looking at potential improvements to the way our light-duty vehicle greenhouse gas program is structured,” said EPA Office of Transportation...

Climate Bill’s Heightened Uncertainty Places Biden GHG Targets In Limbo

The heightened uncertainty facing Democrats’ climate-heavy budget legislation is putting the attainment of the Biden administration’s greenhouse gas targets for 2030 in limbo, especially as new preliminary estimates show that United States GHG emissions rebounded as expected in 2021. The latest uncertainty stems from reports that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the leading Democratic holdout on the administration’s budget package, says he is no longer in active talks with administration officials and might not be willing to support a $1.8 trillion...

EPA Highlights ‘Transformative’ Funds For Zero-Emission School Buses

An EPA official is highlighting $5 billion in the new infrastructure law for the agency to subsidize zero-emission and other “clean” school buses as a “transformative” opportunity to improve public health and advance low-carbon technology as regulators eye tougher greenhouse gas and air standards for the heavy truck sector. The agency is suggesting the infrastructure law’s funding could work in tandem with, and help support, these planned regulatory efforts, in line with the Biden administration’s whole-of-government efforts to adopt incentives...

Biofuels Groups Eye Long-Term Vehicle GHG Rule As Venue For Sector

Biofuels groups are largely shifting their advocacy focus to future EPA rules, including its longer-term vehicle greenhouse gas standards, as they push ethanol and other biofuels as a low-carbon strategy, after the agency’s near-term auto GHG plan omitted discussion of biofuels as a potential compliance tool. The strategy surfaced in testimony from multiple biofuel backers at an Aug. 25-26 public hearing on EPA’s proposal for vehicle GHG limits from model year 2023-2026, a policy that focuses largely on other strategies...

Biden Agenda Signals EPA’s Priority GHG Focus On Vehicles, Methane

EPA’s unified agenda of upcoming regulatory actions offers new details on agency timelines for prioritizing light-duty vehicle standards and oil and gas sector methane controls in its initial greenhouse gas regulations, while appearing to confirm GHG rules for power plants are proceeding on a slower regulatory track. The spring unified agenda, released June 11, also specifies a series of deadlines for controlling or revising rules related to hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and other non-fossil fuel related greenhouse gases that appear broadly in...

Whitehouse floats bill boosting aviation biofuel to cut GHGs

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) is introducing a bill to boost the aviation sector’s uptake of biofuels, in order to drive down greenhouse gas emissions faster from aircraft, amid the industry’s slow adoption of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and a lack of other current options to decarbonize the sector. Whitehouse’s bill , introduced May 13 and dubbed the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Act, is the Senate companion to draft House legislation introduced Feb. 3 by Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA), H.R. 741, which...

Trump EPA GHG Limit Vacatur Clears Path To Regulate Smaller Sources

A federal appeals court’s vacatur of a Trump EPA rule aimed at limiting the agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions is a major win for the Biden administration, lawyers say, because it clears the path for EPA to pursue rules for sectors that emit GHGs below the large Trump-era threshold that would have excluded most sources. The 11th-hour rule barred EPA from regulating GHG emissions under section 111 of the Clean Air Act unless a sector was responsible for...

Environmentalists float low-carbon agenda for GSA

Environmentalists are outlining an ambitious low-carbon agenda for President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the General Services Administration (GSA), former Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, seeking to harness the government’s purchasing power for transitioning to a zero-emissions economy. “As the next GSA Administrator, Robin Carnahan will be tasked with the decarbonization of one of the largest sectors of the economy -- the U.S. government,” says Jamal Raad, executive director of Evergreen Action in an April 7 statement laying out...

DOE flags five additional Trump efficiency rules for review

The Biden Energy Department (DOE) is identifying five additional Trump-era energy efficiency rules for review and possible reversal because they could be inconsistent with the new administration’s climate and environment agenda. In a Feb. 19 memo , DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) floats a “preliminary” list of 13 rules it will review by the end of the year, pursuant to President Joe Biden’s executive order (EO) 13990, a climate-focused order he signed Jan. 20. Of the...

New Industry Coalition Backs Biden’s 2050 GHG Goal But Resists Regulation

The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) has announced a coalition of industry leaders who embrace President Joe Biden’s push toward a net-zero emissions economy by 2050, while touting technology and market-based steps, rather than regulations, for achieving those climate policy goals. The Net-Zero Business Alliance was “created to work with public and private stakeholders to develop the policies required for success, while at the same time recognizing that many individual companies, including some within the Alliance, may not yet be in...

Biden taps senior IEA official as DOE’s deputy secretary

President Joe Biden is planning to nominate David Turk, a former Obama climate official who currently serves at the International Energy Agency (IEA), to be deputy energy secretary, underscoring the importance that global energy commitments will play in achieving the administration’s sweeping climate change goals. Biden announced that Turk, the former deputy assistant Energy secretary for international climate and technology and current deputy executive director of IEA, will be nominated to serve as the Department of Energy’s deputy secretary under...

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