IN THIS ISSUE:
- Some Suggestions on Climate and Environmental Policy for the New Sheriff in Town
- Climate Change Has Not Measurably Impacted Waves or Storm Surges
- Dutch Court Overturns Climate Verdict Against Shell
Some Suggestions on Climate and Environment for the New Sheriff in Town
President-elect Donald Trump’s overwhelming electoral victory and his winning of the popular vote gives him a mandate to move forward with his agenda, not the least of which on the climate and energy deregulatory agenda he promoted during his campaign.
In anticipation of Trump’s victory, a coalition of groups—among them the Heartland Institute, E&E Legal Institute, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), Truth in Energy and Climate, and The American Energy Institute—assembled a list of 10 climate and energy actions Trump could begin implementing on day one to bring sound science and economics back to energy and climate policy.
Bloomberg News provided a cursory discussion and critique of these proposals in a story misleadingly titled, “Climate Skeptics Urge Trump to Boost Coal, Gut Federal Science.” While the proposals would boost coal, they would not gut science; rather, they would improve it while getting America on track to energy dominance within the law. People should judge for themselves to determine the merits of the proposals; thus, I present the list below unfiltered.
1. Paris Climate Treaty and Endangerment Finding. Determine that the Paris climate
agreement is properly a treaty (rather than a mere “executive agreement”) that requires Senate ratification. Transmit the treaty to the Senate for its advice. This will legally relieve the United States of any and all obligations under the treaty until and unless the Senate formally ratifies it. Repeal the Obama/Biden EPA determination that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are threats to the public health and welfare (the “endangerment finding”).
2. EV mandate and California waiver. Repeal the Biden tailpipe rule/EV mandate and withdraw the California CO2 waiver that allows California to set tailpipe emissions and de facto national gas mileage standards. Request legislation clarifying that the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) pre-empts state regulation of fuel economy, including Clean Air Act waivers, and clarifies that the Clean Air Act cannot be used to regulate CO2.
3. Green New Scam and Grid Security. Freeze all Inflation Reduction Act climate/energy spending pending review. Ask Congress to repeal all the energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act through budget reconciliation. For national and economic security purposes, bar electricity grid reliance on variable sources of electricity generation such as wind and solar.
4. Oil and Gas. Restore active federal oil and gas leasing on federal lands and offshore, including the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA) and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska. Lift moratoria on offshore drilling in areas put off limits by prior presidents. Reverse the Biden moratorium on federal leasing for coal mining. Streamline the permitting process for energy production. End the Biden moratorium on LNG export terminals.
5. Presidential Appointments. Appoint officials at federal agencies like EPA, Interior, DoE, FERC, and other key agencies that will aggressively permit new oil and gas pipelines, LNG terminals, and other infrastructure required for producing oil, gas, and coal. Streamline the permitting process. Terminate all existing federal science advisory boards and reconstitute only those that are legally required. Appoint qualified and pro-energy individuals to the boards.
6. Offshore Wind. Offshore wind developers, which happen to be foreign companies in most instances, threaten consumers, endangered species, and iconic maritime communities whose prosperity depends on the fishing. The industrialization of fisheries by offshore wind development should be terminated by delisting unleased wind energy areas, revoking the “30×30” pledge, implementing a cumulative effects approach to planning, and developing a balanced interagency process not dominated by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).
7. Coal. Repeal all the anti-coal regulatory actions of the Biden administration and promote coal as a preferred means of producing electricity. Commence a review of related air quality regulations issued by EPA.
8. Litigation. Withdraw from, so as to terminate, industry litigation over Biden administration regulatory actions. Re-staff the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division attorneys who will zealously defend administration priorities.
9. Regulatory Reform. End regulatory agency use of the linear non-threshold model (LNT) for radiation and chemical risk assessment. Reinstate the EPA rule against the use of “secret science.” Request legislation to require that federal courts no longer defer to regulatory agencies on scientific matters.
10. Regulatory Burden. Request the REINS Act be passed to require congressional authorization of regulations with a significant economic impact, including but not limited to those with an economic impact of $100 million or more.
There are, of course, numerous other efforts, initiatives, policies, and laws that the signatories believe Trump, through executive orders, working through the regulatory process of agencies, and hand in hand with Congress, should undertake in the environment, climate, and energy fields. These efforts would advance personal freedom, economic progress, and environmental quality. However, the 10 actions above are a good start.
Sources: Climate Realism; Junk Science; Bloomberg News
Climate Change Has Not Measurably Impacted Waves or Storm Surges
Research published in the journal Nature by an international team of researchers consisting of engineers and geoscientists from universities and research institutes in Australia and the Netherlands finds that climate change has not produced measurable changes concerning wave height or storm surges that leads to shoreline loss, despite model projections.
The scholars examined a variety of independent global and regional datasets of sandy shoreline recession/progradation shorelines as well as satellite derived datasets of shoreline growth and decline. They then compared that to data and modeled behavior of shores and wave action. Comparing changes in the two types of data over three decades was meant to determine whether trends in the former can be linked to changes in the latter. They report:
Despite numerous studies of the impacts of anthropogenic climate change on trends in global wind and waves, a clear link to impacts on sandy coastlines, at global scale, is yet to be demonstrated. … Over the past 30 + years, we show that there have been clear changes in waves and storm surge at global scale. The data … does not show an unequivocal linkage between trends in wave and storm surge climate and sandy shoreline recession/progradation. We conclude that these long-term changes in oceanographic parameters may still be too small to have a measurable impact on shoreline recession/progradation and that primary drivers such as ambient imbalances in the coastal sediment budget may be masking any such linkages.
Rather than changes in wave height or an increase in the number or severity of storm surges, increases and declines in shore were found to be more closely correlated to local short-term weather events, specific tropical cyclones or oceanic or geologic (volcanic) changes, human development and activities, land reclamation, sedimentation from development, and land subsidence.
Source: Nature;No Tricks Zone
Dutch Court Overturns Climate Verdict Against Shell
In a case brought by Friends of the Earth (Netherlands), a court in the Netherlands found Shell Oil guilty of climate pollution in 2021. As a remedy, the court required Shell to cut the emissions of carbon dioxide from its operations, its sales and purchases from third parties, and final users of its products by 45 percent below its 2019 emissions by 2030.
The groundbreaking ruling was considered by many to be precedent setting, as it was the first time a court had ruled that a specific oil and gas company was at fault for contributing to climate change and required by a court to cut emissions by a specific amount. Shell appealed the ruling, which was overturned on November 12.
Shell argued, as it and other major oil companies have maintained when facing similar lawsuits in the United States, that courts were not the proper forum for making demands to cut emissions. Instead, they claim, such requirements must come from national legislatures.
Although the appeals court found that Shell did have a general obligation to reduce its direct greenhouse gas emissions, the court found it was already acting to do so and is on track to reduce its emissions by 30 percent. More specifically, the court found:
[A]n absolute order to reduce emissions from its products could have an adverse effect worldwide, as it could lead customers to switch from using Shell’s gas to more polluting coal.
“In general, any reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is positive to mitigate climate change,” Presiding Judge Carla Joustra said. “But that does not mean that a reduction order for Shell has that same effect.”
[And the court wrote] it was “unable to establish that the social standard of care entails an obligation for Shell to reduce its CO2 emissions by 45%, or some other percentage. There is currently insufficient consensus in climate science on a specific reduction percentage to which an individual company like Shell should adhere.”
Expanding on the court’s decision, NPR reported:
The court then ruled that “for Shell to reduce CO2 emissions caused by buyers of Shell products … by a particular percentage would be ineffective in this case. Shell could meet that obligation by ceasing to trade in the fuels it purchases from third parties. Other companies would then take over that trade.”
Shell and CitiBank analysts agreed on one thing: the appeals court’s decision was good for Shell.
“We are pleased with the court’s decision, which we believe is the right one for the global energy transition, the Netherlands and our company,” said Wael Sawan, Shell’s CEO, in a press release from the company.
Reuters quoted analysts at Citi stating, “[w]hile success with the appeals court may not be the end of the legal process, by signaling that company strategy is now more firmly in the hands of shareholders, we believe it has a positive impact.”
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H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., is the Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
