Today, CNN reported that Donald Trump’s panel to justify gutting climate safeguards AKA the “Presidential Committee on Climate Security” head William Happer promoted his anti climate science conspiracy theories on white nationalist Stefan Molyneux’s podcast, spoke at a conference organized by the AIDS denialist conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin as well as on a YouTube channel that pushes 9/11 conspiracy theories.
TRENTON -- Today the Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has approved proposals from Orsted for 1100MW of offshore wind. This solicitation award is part of Governor Murphy’s Executive Order No. 8. The order sets a goal of providing 3,500 megawatts of offshore wind by 2030 with at least 1,100 megawatts to be procured as soon as possible.
Once built, the 1100MW project would power an estimated 875,000 homes and reduce Co2 emissions in the state by close to 3 million metric tons annually.
WASHINGTON, DC - The Sierra Club is launching a monthly 2020 Democratic Primary tracking poll, conducted by Morning Consult, with the first wave of results coming ahead of next week’s Democratic debates in Miami.
Morning Consult will conduct the 2020 Climate Voter Tracking Poll for Sierra Club in order to determine how candidates stack up with Democratic primary voters who are most deeply concerned about the climate crisis and the candidates’ plans to tackle it.
Today, Duke Energy Indiana announced its preferred 20-year energy plan, which is a climate and customer disaster. Duke’s proposed portfolio relies heavily on new fracked gas power plants and continued reliance for decades on one of the largest coal-burning fleets in the country.
Today, the Illinois Pollution Control Board (IPCB) approved a rulemaking initiated in 2017 under the Rauner Administration that allows Vistra Energy, the Texas-based owner of Illinois largest coal plant fleet, greater flexibility to operate its plants with less stringent, state pollution standards. Since proposed, the revisions to one of Illinois’ signature air pollution standards, known as the Multi-Pollutant Standard (MPS), generated significant public opposition across the state and drew greater speculation on the close ties Rauner’s IEPA Director had with polluting industries though important improvements were made to the original proposal by both the IPCB and new IEPA leadership under the Pritzker Administration, environmental and community groups continue to seek stronger standards.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, two subcommittees of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing on the Trump Administration’s planned rollback of the fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions, known as the Clean Car Standards. The hearing was peppered with hard-hitting questions about the wide-spread and devastating role the proposed rollback will have on public health, the environment, consumers, and the auto industry itself.
Today the Illinois Pollution Control Board (IPCB) agreed with environmental groups in their lawsuit against Midwest Generation, LLC, a subsidiary of NRG Energy, alleging that four of its coal power plants contaminated groundwater with harmful chemicals found in coal ash. The pollution at those four coal power plants, located in Waukegan, Joliet, Pekin, and Will County, put the densely populated communities around the plants at risk. This is a major victory in a case started in 2012 by the environmental groups (Sierra Club, Environmental Law & Policy Center, Prairie Rivers Network, and Citizens Against Ruining the Environment).
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, in a hearing about the Administration’s rollback of the clean car standards, EPA Assistant Administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation Bill Wehrum four times refused to answer Representative McNerney’s yes or no questions on whether he believes in climate science and whether it poses a danger to human health, despite rollbacks to the Clean Power Plan and the clean car standards.
Baltimore, MD -- The Maryland Commission on Climate Change (MCCC) hosted a meeting today where Governor Hogan’s Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) presented an overview of its draft Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act Plan (GGRA). Advocates are concerned that the Governor’s current plan will not provide enough ambitious climate action leadership, especially since details remain sparse. The release of the draft plan is already six months overdue.
On Tuesday, the same evening Trump claimed the US has the “cleanest air and water” at a campaign rally in Orlando, Florida, the AP reported that U.S. air quality is deteriorating after years of improvement. The decrease in air quality comes as Trump rolls back two of the US’ biggest defenses of clean air and a safe climate: the Clean Power Plan, replaced yesterday with the “Dirty Power Scam” and the clean car standards. Notably, the main architects of the rollbacks from EPA and NHTSA’s political leadership are about to face a congressional hearing.