Sub-national state

5/17 sub-category, mostly on trump resistance (and allies)

Jerry Brown announced and hired eric holder, boosted CA AG becerra budget for fight, own dammed satellites

see also sister SUBNATIONAL regional, see also local

Government for Rent

How Special Interests Finance Governors to Pursue Their Climate Policy Agenda

Christopher C. Horner • September 11, 2018

Executive Summary

FROM SEPTEMBER 12 TO 14, 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown (D) will host a “Global Climate Action Summit,” an official state event using public positions and taxpayer resources to make climate change an issue of greater political concern before the 2018 elections.1 This three-day event is budgeted at $10 million, provided by “strong support from individuals, foundations, governments and businesses. Supporters will be able to engage Summit leaders”—e.g., elected office holders—“and shape an event that will catalyze [government] climate action worldwide.”

Open record productions reveal that this summit is part of an enormous climate industry that funnels donor money through nonprofit organizations to staff up politicians’ offices. This is doneoff the books, and the nonprofits take a handsome percentage for serving as middlemen. The September event is just one component of a sprawling enterprise that underwrites “support functions” for politicians to advocate the parties’ aligned policy agenda...

Implementation of the Paris agenda requires domestic policies, and implementing those policies is the principal objective of the campaign detailed in this paper. The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) recently revealed a similar model in the report, “Law Enforcement for Rent,” that is used to provide off-books staff members for state attorneys general to investigate opponents of the climate agenda.6 This approach raises serious questions about transparency of and restrictions on gifts to elected officials under various state laws:7 Is this provision of outside consultants on a donor’s tab a gift? Does it violate gift limits? Are the gifts properly reported? Is this private provision of government services unlawful in that jurisdiction? It would be at the federal level under the Antideficiency Act, which was enacted to prevent a variety of abuses, including bestowing private benefits and having officials avoid incurring obligation to private parties.8...

The objective of all this effort is to advance a narrative through supportive media coverage of campaigns such as a governors’ U.S. Climate Alliance (USCA) and events such as Governor Brown’s San Francisco Summit, which is supposedly the product of public officials’ work, if courtesy of consultants and public relations agents provided by donors and through activist groups underwritten by donors using a nonprofit as the pass-through.

Privately Funded Government

The modus operandi revealed in the documents excerpted in this report entails seeding local and statewide elected offices with privately funded in-house staff members (governors’ staffs called them “refugees” from the Obama administration).17 The objective is to house former National Security Council and State Department appointees to, as one email put it, “resume shaping the U.S. position on” the energy and climate change agenda.18

Those emails lay out the inducements of an outside network of privately funded consultants and public relations assistance for elected officials who agree to lend their offices to a donor-funded advocacy campaign for the donors’ climate agenda.

Documents suggest politicians are now using nonprofits and consultants as pass-throughs for donors to support politicians with resources that the relevant legislatures will not provide and that donors cannot legally provide directly. Emails such as Dan Carol’s pitch and others obtained under state open records laws reveal a campaign initiated immediately after the 2016 elections. The campaign assembled “some collection of former Obama staffers” teaming with nonprofit, 501(c)3 policy, and grant-making groups to put some portion of thatannual billion dollars to work directly at the disposal of elected officials.19

Those officials’ staff members took the lead in designing, proposing, obtaining off-the-books funding for the plan, and initially executing it. Their rationale was “[I]t can’t always be us staff” performing the work of government.20 Any public or legal expectations to the contrary took a back seat to their bosses’ and donors’ expectations.

The program involves not just running the money through “pass-through” charities. Given the pass-throughs’ often exorbitant fees for performing this service (up to 24 percent, depending on what function they are serving), donors also directly pay for still more consultants, including media promoters. Among the work that the PR firm promotes are reports produced for the officials by outside consultants. The donor’s cost for those can be $100,000 per report, a report plainly given to elected officeholders to tout their leadership and to advance an aligned policy agenda.

I. MODEL A—DONOR-FUNDED IN-HOUSE STAFF...

Ohio’s Right-Wing Buckeye Institute Goes National

By Don Wiener and Arn Pearson | January 27th, 2020 at 12:01 PM (CST)

The Ohio-based Buckeye Institute has nearly doubled its revenues in recent years and is increasingly taking its pro-corporate fights to other states.

Big Wins for Renewables, But Also Setbacks

It was another election—the midterm of 2018—that set the stage for a run of climate action by the states this year.

Following gains by Democrats in state legislatures and governors' offices across the country, Maine, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Washington, as well as territory of Puerto Rico, all enacted laws committing to 100 percent clean energy. Together with California, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia, which previously made such commitments, they account for 16 percent of U.S. electricity demand. Governors in six other states (Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Virginia), accounting for 11 percent of U.S. power demand, have proposed similar 100 percent goals.

"These developments could make a significant dent in emissions in the future," an analysis by the Rhodium Group found, although it doesn't see a meaningful impact before 2025.

"I think renewable energy standards have been a huge story," said Jeff Mauk, executive director of the National Caucus of Environmental State Legislators. "Just a few years ago, 100 percent seemed huge pie in the sky. Now, they're making real plans to get there." For example, New York's electric grid operator is proposing to incorporate carbon pricing into its wholesale energy markets, a move that should boost demand for cleaner sources of electricity.

But the fossil fuel industry and its allies also had success in curbing state climate action in 2019:

Washington state, even with the leadership of climate champion Gov. Jay Inslee, could not pass legislation to tackle highway emissions: the proposed low-carbon fuel standard was opposed by the oil industry and others. The win came on the heels of last year's successful effort led by oil giant BP to block carbon pricing legislation.

In an extraordinary standoff in Oregon, Republican lawmakers left the state during the legislative session to deny the Democrats the quorum they needed to pass a carbon tax bill.

And in Ohio, a state once seen as a renewable energy leader, a bailout of the state's struggling nuclear energy plants morphed into legislation that also subsidized coal power while cutting state support for renewable energy and energy efficiency—with the state's ratepayers footing the bill. [SHILLENBERGER!]

300 Lawsuits Aim to Stop Trump's Rollbacks

The biggest fights on the horizon for the states are with the Trump administration, which is seeking to rein in their authority to act on climate change—especially throughan unprecedented withdrawal of California's authority to set vehicle standards that are tougher than the federal standards. This could upend progress on clean passenger vehicles not only in California but in the states that follow its standards. Twenty-three states, the District of Columbia and the cities of New York and Los Angeles have sued to overturn the Trump administration's move.

It is just one of 300 lawsuits and other actions taken over the past three years by state attorneys general against the Trump administration's rollback of environmental rules, according to the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at New York University School of Law. In judgements rendered so far in such cases, there have been 27 wins against the Trump administration and only one loss, according to a tally by NYU Law School's Institute for Policy Integrity.

But the most consequential cases are yet to be decided, including the California car fight and the states' challenge of the Trump administration's weak replacement for the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, involving power plant emissions.

The cases will come before a federal judiciary that is being transformed by Trump, who with the help of congressional rule changes instituted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), has named a quarter of the judges now sitting on the appellate courts—more than any other president since President Jimmy Carter expanded the courts in 1980.

Legal scholars who have analyzed Justice Brett Kavanaugh's rulings since Trump elevated him to the Supreme Court believe that he will vote to strike down EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. For the federal government to curb greenhouse gas emissions under Kavanaugh's narrow reading of the law, Congress would have to pass legislation for the explicit purpose of addressing climate change.

More States Join Northeast's Carbon Market

With Congress dormant thus far on climate and the Obama administration's attempted executive action legacy unraveling, the most durable climate policies so far in the United States have been crafted by the states—especially when working together.

The Northeast's carbon market, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), has helped to cut emissions from electricity generation in the nine states involved by 47 percent in the past decade. The revenue generated by the carbon market has also allowed the states to invest in energy efficiency and utility bill assistance for low-income families.

[nice map]

Building on the success of RGGI, a dozen northeastern states hope to finalize plans in early 2020 to launch a Transportation Climate Initiative, tackling their now-largest source of carbon emissions—cars and trucks. RGGI is now set to expand, with New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy bringing the state back into the fold in 2020, reversing the 2011 decision by his Republican predecessor Chris Christie. Partisan division in Virginia's state capital stalled the plan by Gov. Ralph Northam to join RGGI in 2019, but after Democrats flipped the Legislature in November, regional cap-and-trade is likely to extend its reach into the Old Dominion soon. The biggest development for RGGI is Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf beginning the process of joining, since his state's electricity market is larger than most of the other northeastern states combined.

Pollution allowances will be auctioned to fuel suppliers in the region, with a declining cap on the number of allowances each year and the proceeds invested in electric vehicle infrastructure, mass transit, and other improvements designed to curb carbon emissions. As with RGGI, three Republican governors are on board—Massachusetts' Charlie Baker, who is chairing TCI; Maryland's Larry Hogan and Vermont's Phil Scott.

"It's very bipartisan, and I think that it just shows you that rational behavior is still alive in dealing with the threat of climate change," said Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center at Georgetown Law School, which is providing research and other support for the TCI.

Several of those states joined California and Oregon in December in committing to accelerate the shift to zero-emissions trucks and buses. California's Air Resources Board is considering regulations that would require an increasing percentage of heavy-duty truck sales to be zero-emissions.

Who's Missing?

But can the United States fight climate change with only half the states engaged? America's Pledge stresses that, yes, it has the potential. The states, cities, businesses and other institutions in its coalition represent 68 percent of U.S. GDP, 68 percent of the population, and 51 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

But the most carbon-intensive economies in the U.S. are still not part of the fight.

Sixty-five percent of the remaining U.S. coal power capacity, for example, is located in the 25 states that arenot part of America's Pledge, led by Texas, Indiana and Kentucky. The America's Pledge analysis found that the U.S. could still make progress without the help of these states. It calculated that if just a handful of the states that have already shown some willingness to act adopted stronger policies, like those set by climate leaders like California, the U.S. could cut emissions up to 37 percent by 2030, even if the most carbon-intensive states and the federal government refuse to act. But that's not where the U.S. needs to be if it hopes to reach net zero emissions by mid-century, as the science says is necessary to stave off climate change's worst ravages.

"None of the states who are climate leaders would say that what they're doing is enough," said Arroyo. "But you've got to start to do what you can do, and prove the concept that you can do this without breaking the bank, and in fact you can do it while growing your economy, creating jobs and enhancing the quality of life."

RMI's Frisch said the real lesson of the state and local climate effort so far in the United States is that it is essential, but not sufficient.

"The states are the reason for the progress that we've had so far," she said. "And their effort will still be fundamental going ahead. But we can't get where we need to be without the federal government, and the federal government can't do it without the states. We need to have both."

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Great: major automakers and California defy Trump rollback, make an agreement to curb auto pollution

Ford, Honda, Volkswagen, and BMW “have struck a deal with California to reduce tailpipe pollution,” reports The New York Times, side-stepping the Trump rollback of strong Obama-era standards.
The deal will create “much-needed regulatory certainty,” the automakers say, and avoid “a patchwork of regulations while continuing to ensure meaningful greenhouse gas emissions reductions.”
The automakers are referring to two things here:

- The lawsuit that over a dozen states and DC filed last year, charging that Trump arbitrarily and capriciously junked the Obama-era standards.
- The Trump EPA’s stated intention to revoke California’s power (written into the Clean Air Act) to set its own standards, which the state has vowed to fight.

California is now calling on more automakers to join the deal.
Under the deal, cars and light trucks sold in California will need to get about 51 miles per gallon by 2026, rather than the 52.5 mpg by 2025 established in the Obama standard.
“Automakers will also receive additional compliance credits for selling electric vehicles under the plan, among other revisions, the state’s air pollution regulator said,” according to Bloomberg News.
“Some environmental groups criticized the slower pace and expanded loopholes the deal awarded the automakers,” The Times reports.
But it’s considerably stronger than what the Trump administration intends: freezing the tailpipe standard at its 2021 level of 37 mpg.
“The EPA called the deal a ‘stunt,”, reports The Verge, “and said it won’t change the administration’s rollback plans.”
Background:

- Trump’s EPA and Department of Transportation announced their plan to replace the Obama-era standards a year ago, “with only desultory gestures at justification,” as Vox wrote at the time.
- The auto industry, fearing the regulatory chaos that years of litigation over the rollback will cause, wrote directly to the president to urge him to roll back the rollback, as The Detroit Free Press reported in June.

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'Huge Victory' for Grassroots Climate Campaigners as NY Lawmakers Reach Deal on Sweeping Climate Legislation

CLIMATE CHANGE

https://www.ecowatch.com/grassroots-climate-campaign-new-york-2638905712.html

Julia Conley

Grassroots climate campaigners in New York applauded on Monday after state lawmakers reached a deal on sweeping climate legislation, paving the way for the passage of what could be some of the country's most ambitious environmental reforms.

The legislature reached an agreement just before midnight Sunday on the Climate and Communities Protection Act (CCPA), one of several climate bills state lawmakers have pushed in recent months since progressives gained momentum in their push for a federal Green New Deal.

New York's CCPA — like those passed in recent months in California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Nevada and Washington — offers a path forward for the implementation of Green New Deal-like laws at the state level, proponents say.

"This is going to be a huge victory for the environmental justice movement in New York," author Naomi Kleintweeted, adding that some far-reaching parts of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal grew out of state legislation.[n klein twet[

New York's CCPA calls for zero fossil fuel emissions from utilities by 2040.By 2050, 85 percent of all energy in the state will be from renewable sources under the legislation, with the remaining 15 percent being off-set or captured.

"By and large, this is a very big victory," Arielle Swernoff of New York Renews, a coalition that pushed to pass the bill,toldthe Huffington Post. The group counts more than 100 groups in its membership, including national groups like 350.org and Friends of the Earth as well as local organizations like Saratoga Unites and Syracuse United Neighbors....

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chevron takes lead in defense (city/state level lawsuits for damage agw) b/c exxon and others KNEW; using 1st amend defense cf drilled season 2

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idaho gov little 2018

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09012019/pennsylvania-greenhouse-gas-reduction-target-natural-gas-fracking-climate-change

In Pennsylvania, a coal-mining state where the fracking boom has also pushed natural gas production to the second highest levels in the nation, Gov. Tom Wolf is launching into his second term with a conspicuous move on climate change.

Wolf issued an executive order on Tuesday to set the state's first economy-wide targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

His goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions 26 percent by 2025 compared to 2005 levels mirrors the commitment the U.S. made as part of the Paris climate agreement. And his longer-term target—an 80 percent reduction by 2050—is in line with the decarbonization that scientists have said will be needed to keep global temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

But meeting that target is easier said than done with Republicans in control of both chambers of the legislature, as the Democratic governor pointed out.

The governor can set energy efficiency targets for state agencies, take steps to increase the number of electric cars in state fleets, and increase purchases of renewable energy, but those moves would be insufficient on their own to curb Pennsylvania's emissions.

Pennsylvania now ranks fourth in the country, behind Texas, California and Florida, in carbon emissions. Methane, a short-lived climate pollutant, is also an issue. The state is second behind Texas in natural gas production and the third-largest coal producer after Wyoming and West Virginia.

'Not Too Much, But Not Too Little'

Wolf cautioned that it was unlikely that legislative action would be forthcoming to accomplish his greenhouse gas reduction goals. He also said he did not have any regulatory actions in mind and did not want to be punitive to industry.

"What I try to make sure is that what I do is not too much, but not too little," he said. Wolf used the signing event at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh to hail a local utility, Peoples Natural Gas, for a commitment to cut its methane emissions in half, calling it a model for industry and government cooperation.

By setting the targets, Pennsylvania joins 16 other states that as part of the U.S. Climate Alliance have pledged to meet the U.S. climate commitment despite President Donald Trump's vow to exit the Paris accord.

States Stepping Up on Climate Policies

The announcement comes at a time when states are stepping up on a wide variety of fronts to counter Trump's moves to promote fossil fuels and end climate action.

On Tuesday, legislators in nine coastal statesannounced they would introduce legislation to try to block Trump's plan for a major expansion in offshore drilling.

Pennsylvania joined eight eastern states and Washington, D.C., late last year in committing to cut transportation emissions in the region by designing a new cap-and-trade system.

Pennsylvania Hasn't Joined RGGI

But Pennsylvania has been out of step with neighboring states when it comes to power plant emissions.

When New Jersey rejoins the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) later this year, Pennsylvania will be the only northeastern state led by a Democratic governor not to be a part of the market-based program to reduce utility emissions.

More than 60 Pennsylvania businesses, communities and faith groups in November petitioned Pennsylvania's Environmental Quality Board to initiate an economy-wide "cap-and-trade" program. Although the board rejected a similar petition before, the new effort relies on a 2017 state Supreme Court ruling that upheld a broad interpretation of the Environmental Rights Amendment in the state's constitution.

PUBLISHED UNDER:

NATURAL GAS AND FRACKING

GLOBAL CLIMATE TREATY

PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT

SHORT-LIVED CLIMATE POLLUTANTS

PI philipines typhoon guy called mtg a trade show on how to make $ on agw?!

note polarization less b/c mayors have to be pothole practical/accountable.

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icn

4 Groundbreaking Announcements From the Global Climate Action Summit

Over the past three days, more than 4,000 people have gathered in San Francisco for the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) convened by California Governor Jerry Brown to mobilize regional, local and business leaders around climate change.

Seventeen states and 400 cities, representing together the world's third largest economy, have now joined Brown and summit co-chair and UN special envoy for climate action Michael Bloomberg's "We're Still In" commitment to honor the terms of the Paris agreement despite President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw, and Bloomberg announced at the summit Thursday that the group was making progress, The Nation reported.

"Today, we announce that this 'bottom up' movement will put us within striking distance of the US commitment to the Paris Agreement, even with zero support from our federal government," Bloomberg said, according to The Nation.

That announcement was based on a report written by researchers at the University of Maryland and the Rocky Mountain Institute that found that business, regional and local efforts have taken the U.S. nearly halfway towards meeting its 2025 Paris goal and will carry it two-thirds of the way by 2025 without federal support, according to a GCAS press release.

But that was only one of the many announcements made by cities, states and businesses as they celebrated their progress and reaffirmed their commitment to fighting climate change.

Here is a roundup of some of the highlights.

1. 27 Cities Have Reached Peak Carbon

Scientists have warned that global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak in 2020 and then rapidly decline in order to avoid catastrophic warming.

Luckily, on Thursday, Paris mayor and chair of the C40 network of cities committed to climate action Anne Hidalgo announced that 27 major cities, representing 54 million people, had already passed this milestone, according to a GCAS press release.

Barcelona, Basel, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Copenhagen, Heidelberg, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Melbourne, Milan, Montréal, New Orleans, New York City, Oslo, Paris, Philadelphia, Portland, Rome, San Francisco, Stockholm, Sydney, Toronto, Vancouver, Warsaw and Washington, DC have all seen their emissions fall over the last five years to at least 10 percent below peak levels while their economies have continued to grow.

"It is an incredible achievement for these 27 cities, including Paris, to have peaked their emissions," Hidalgo said. "As the greatest custodians of the Paris Agreement, mayors of the world's great cities have once again shown that cities are getting the job done."

2. NYC Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth Is

It is not enough for cities to rest on past accomplishments.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio followed up an earlier commitment to divest the New York pension fund from fossil fuels with a new commitment to double the fund's investments in climate change solutions to $4 billion within three years, a GCAS press release reported.

Ahead of the summit, de Blasio had joined with London Mayor Sadiq Khan to call on other cities to divest from fossil fuels and invest in solutions like renewable energy.

De Blasio was joined in his announcement by Comptroller Scott Stringer and other fund trustees.

"New York City leads from the front when it comes to the fight against climate change," de Blasio said. "We're taking a stand for generations to come with our goal to double our pension investments in job-creating climate solutions. I know that other cities will look to our example, and I implore them to join us."

3. West Coast Represents

The Pacific Coast Collaborative (PCC), representing the states of California, Oregon, Washington, the Canadian province of British Columbia and the cities of Los Angeles, Oakland San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, renewed its commitment to working together against climate change and towards a growing renewable energy economy.

Commitments included reducing carbon emissions, developing a low-carbon, regional transportation system, improving building efficiency and reducing food waste 50 percent by 2030.

"The West Coast represents the world's fifth largest economy and we are creating a blueprint for other regions," Washington Governor Jay Inslee said. "We are building a thriving, innovative economy that combats climate change and embraces a zero-emission future. Our efforts aren't just building a clean energy economy, they're also creating great places to live. Our communities are growing healthier and more prosperous, and attractive to new businesses and workers."

4. EV Innovators Charge Forward

Business leaders made commitments as well, including ChargePoint, one of the world's largest networks of electric vehicle chargers, according to Reuters.

The company announced a pledge to add 2.5 million charging points to its network within the next seven years on Friday, according to a press release emailed to EcoWatch.

The commitment represents a nearly fifty-fold expansion of its charging network, would prevent two million tons of greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere and would help establish infrastructure for a future in which EVs are expected to represent more than 50 percent of new car purchases by 2040.

ChargePoint President and CEO Pasquale Romano said in a press conference that the company had done the math, and the commitment meant the company was "going to grow in line with the adoption rate of EVS."

The commitment actually only covers a "subset" of ChargePoint's business, Romano said.

ChargePoint has developed a business model of going from business to business and installing chargers in company parking lots, and this is the network it is committed to expanding.

Its home and transportation fleet charging efforts are not included and will represent additional greenhouse gas savings.

Romano said that policy decisions by individual governments, such as Trump's reversal of Obama-era fuel efficiency standards, could be "speed bumps" in the growth of EVs, but policies already established in California and the EU, as well as the quality and falling price of EVs, meant that their use would continue to expand.

"In the long term, this is an unstoppable train," he said.

Massachusetts' highest court on Tuesday resoundingly upheld the state's power to impose limits on carbon emissions from power plants.

It's the latest example of states establishing their authority to fill the regulatory void the Trump administration is creating as it moves to roll back the Clean Power Plan and other federal climate regulations.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection finalized rules last year to require power plants within the state's borders to reduce their emissions annually, amounting to a 7 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from current levels by 2020 and an 80 percent reduction by 2050. It is one of a suite of clean energy and pollution control policies state officials have put into place under the Global Warming Solutions Act, signed into law by then-Gov. Deval Patrick in 2008. The law's "name bespeaks its ambitions," Justice Scott Kafker wrote for the unanimous seven-member Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. It "was passed to address the grave threats that climate change poses to the health, economy, and natural resources of the Commonwealth."

"The act is designed to make Massachusetts a national, and even international, leader in the efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change," he wrote. Since the electric power sector is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions within the state, Kafker, who was appointed last year by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, said, it would make "little to no sense" for the Legislature to have excluded it from the requirements of the law.

The court dismissed the arguments of the electric power industry (represented by the New England Power Generators Association and GenOn Energy) that the sector is subject to other state regulations and therefore can't be subject to the carbon emissions rules. Kafker said the environmental regulations don't conflict, but complement each other.

He also brushed aside the industry's contention that the new rules could have the unintended consequence of increasing carbon emissions if Massachusetts seeks additional power from out of state that ends up being dirtier. Kafker noted that the state has a renewable energy standard in place that is designed to force power providers to rely on an increasing amount of clean energy.

"Far from causing increased greenhouse gas emissions from out-of-State generators," Kafker wrote, state environmental officials had provided convincing evidence that "the two regulations together will send a market signal that Massachusetts' neighbors should invest in clean energy development in order to satisfy the Commonwealth's increasing demand for renewable energy."

Massachusetts' Push Away from Fossil Fuels

The decision comes at pivotal moment for Massachusetts, as it transitions to cleaner energy.

The state's last coal plant, Brayton Point in Somerset, closed last year, and the state has been investing in the infrastructure to support an offshore wind industry. The Vineyard Wind project, an 800 megawatt offshore wind farm planned off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, is expected to soon start the state toward its goal of having 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind energy by 2027.

"It spells the end of fossil fuel electricity in Massachusetts," said David Ismay, an attorney with the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation, arguing the standards will mean a gradual phase-down in the natural gas generation, which dominates the state's electricity mix.

"It solidifies the shift to clean energy."

States Leading the Way Toward Cleaner Energy

The Massachusetts plan to reduce carbon emissions from power plants is just one example of states seizing the initiative to force reductions in greenhouse gases over the past year as President Donald Trump has made clear his intention to abandon the U.S. commitment to reduce emissions. California lawmakers last week voted to require that state's utilities to use 100 percent carbon-free power by 2050. Hawaii has a similar requirement. Other states have increased their renewable portfolio standards for clean energy.

Massachusetts is also part of the nine-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which last year updated its cap-and-trade program to achieve a 30 percent reduction in carbon pollution from the region's power plants by 2030. (In 2016, the Massachusetts high court said that state officials could not rely on RGGI alone to achieve the goals of the state's Global Warming Solutions Act, since it did not guarantee Massachusetts-based emissions reductions. The rules upheld on Tuesday were written in response to that ruling.)

Governors of a dozen states have committed to reduce emissions in line with the U.S. goals under the Paris Agreement even though Trump has announced his intention to withdraw. The climate action commitments made by states, cities and businesses will be the focus of a Global Climate Action Summit scheduled for next week in San Francisco.

Ismay said he believed the Massachusetts court decision will resonate beyond the state.

"We can't solve it alone," he said. "But we can have an impact by pointing a way forward, and passing strong laws that are upheld."

PUBLISHED UNDER:

CLEAN ENERGY

CLIMATE CHANGE

===

https://www.alternet.org/environment/could-be-moment-world-governments-chart-path-toward-tackling-climate-change

sf mtg and carbon tax

https://www.ecowatch.com/paris-agreement-governors-us-climate-alliance-2574246495.html

17 Governors Renew Climate Pledges on Anniversary of Trump's Paris Accord Retreat

A year ago today, President Donald Trump announced plans to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement. His action spurred Syria and Nicaragua, the only two holdout countries, to join the landmark deal to limit warming well below the dangerous threshold of 2°C.

While the federal government falters, scores of businesses, institutions, cities and states across the nation are bucking Trump and remain committed to the goals of the global climate accord.

Today, the governors of sixteen states and Puerto Rico that make up the U.S. Climate Alliance recommitted their pledges to the Paris agreement and announced a new wave of initiatives to accelerate and scale up climate action.

"The U.S. Climate Alliance now represents 40 percent of the U.S. population and a $9 trillion economy, greater than the third-largest country in the world, and U.S. Climate Alliance states are on track to meet their share of the Paris Agreement emissions target by 2025," the states reported.

The bi-partisan alliance, formed on the same day Trump announced the Paris retreat, includes the governors of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

In an op-ed published in USA TODAY, alliance co-chairs and Democratic Govs. Jerry Brown of California, Andrew Cuomo of New York and Jay Inslee of Washington explained that climate goals and economic growth can be met at the same time.

"President Trump's announcement last year centered on his allegation that the Paris Agreement hurts the U.S. economy. The fact that our collective economies are stronger than non-alliance states proves just the opposite," they wrote. "Alliance states are not only reducing emissions more rapidly than the rest of the country, but we are also expanding ourper capita economic output twice as fast. Alliance states are attracting billions of dollars in climate and clean energy investments that have created 1.3 million clean energy jobs. The Alliance states are not alone: meeting the most ambitious goals of the Paris Agreement is projected to save the world $30 trillion in avoided economic damages."

Some of the governors' new measures include a commitment to reduce super pollutants such as methane, hydrofluorocarbons and black carbon. Among other initiatives, they intend to create their own "green bank" to fund sustainable infrastructure projects, a Solar Soft Costs Initiative to reduce the costs of solar projects, and a plan to accelerate deployment of zero-emissions vehicles and expand and improve mass transit.

Even though the U.S. cannot formally exit the Paris agreement until 2020, the Trump administration's love of fossil fuels is already pushing the country's Paris target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 26-28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025 out of reach, the New York Times reported.

It's clear that non-federal entities will have to continue working to fill this void. As Brown, Cuomo and Inslee wrote in their op-ed, "We will work in lockstep with the nations of the world and continue our work to uphold the Paris Agreement. However, it is clear that we cannot meet the climate challenge alone. We need commitment from every U.S. state and we need the federal government to get back in the game."

"We invite others to join us and mark June 1 not as an anniversary of retreat, but as the moment when a bold, new movement of climate action took root in America."

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21022018/clean-power-plan-repeal-cities-climate-change-epa-emissions-rules

Hundreds of U.S. mayors, representing one in seven Americans, have told EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt that they need the Clean Power Plan's emissions rules in order to fight climate change and protect their cities.

In a letter released on Tuesday, 236 mayors from 47 states urged Pruitt not to repeal the plan, which was a centerpiece of President Obama's effort to tackle climate change by cracking down on emissions from electric power plants. The rule has been in limbo during litigation, and President Trump wants it revoked, as Pruitt has proposed to do.

"We strongly oppose the repeal of the Clean Power Plan, which would put our citizens at risk and undermine our efforts to prepare for and protect against the worst impacts of climate change," the mayors wrote.

The group included the mayors of cities like Orlando, Houston and New Orleans that have suffered the ravages of storms and floods linked to a warming climate. It also included the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, who was hosting Pruitt's latest hearing on the rules Wednesday.

On Twitter, Kansas City Mayor Sly James said the Clean Power Plan "benefits communities across the country."

The rules, which were imposed in 2015, aimed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 32 percent by 2030. Pruitt, who had fought the proposal in court for years, began working to overturn it shortly after being confirmed as EPA administrator. The EPA is collecting public comment until April 26 about how and whether to replace the regulations.

...

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Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was also a notable influencer of 2017, representing the U.S. at COP23 where he, alongside Governors Jerry Brown of California and Jay Inslee of Washington introduced the We Are Still In coalition, a network of U.S. politicians who support climate action despite Trump's withdrawal from the Paris agreement. In October, Bloomberg also announced that his charity would donate $64 million to the retirement of U.S. coal plants, greatly impeding Trump's efforts to revive the American coal industry.

The Failure: Abandoning the Social Cost of Carbon

The social cost of carbon, or SCC, is a calculation that estimates the long-term economic impact of carbon dioxide emissions. It's a highly significant number—lawmakers use the SCC to figure out whether rules that tackle pollution are worth the investment. In 2009, the Obama administration established a group called the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases that eventually set the cost of one ton of CO2 emissions at $41, which is why the former president estimated the Clean Power Plan would ultimately yield up to $54 billion a year in health and environmental benefits.

Just a couple of months after taking Obama's spot in the White House, Trump disbanded the Interagency Working Group with his Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth Executive Order. He said its findings were "no longer representative of governmental policy." Trump decided the SCC should be calculated differently, with each government agency determining its own dollar figure. This could mean interagency inconsistencies as well as an increased emphasis on the domestic, rather than global, impact of CO2—pivots that would make the emissions seem far less costly than they actually are. The Trump U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan, for example, calculated that the SCC would be just $1 to $6 by 2020.

But some courts find fault with this plan. In cases across the country, judges are ruling that the SCC is necessary, and fossil fuel projects like coal mines and pipelines are now tied up as a direct result of the administration's failure to consider the climate costs.

Meanwhile, numerous states, including Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, are ignoring Trump's moves and still using an SCC above $40 to guide policy decisions.

https://www.americaspledgeonclimate.com/

Pittsburgh's mayor, Bill Peduto, was quick to issue a rebuttal in Trump's preferred language (Tweet), saying he would follow the Paris agreement's guidelines. He and Parisian Mayor Anne Hidalgo then doubled down on their joint commitment to climate action in a New York Times op-ed titled "We Have Our Own Climate Deal."

Perhaps Trump forgot that all the groups he mentioned in his withdrawal announcement can speak for themselves, and plenty of them loudly and plainly rebuked his stance by saying, "We Are Still In." A coalition of businesses, cities, states, universities, indigenous peoples and faith groups that are committed to upholding the agreement is 2,500 leaders strong and growing.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and California Gov. Jerry Brown went a step further and launched the America's Pledge initiative, which unites private and public sector leaders devoted to reducing carbon emissions so that the U.S. can still deliver on the goals of the Paris agreement. The coalition recently presented a report to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's executive secretary, Patricia Espinosa, showing that if these U.S. institutions still committed to the Paris agreement were a country, its economy would be the third-largest in the world.

They can't make up for the absence of federal leadership, but they won't stand on the sidelines while our Denier in Chief attempts to trump decades of hard-won climate progress. Make America Great Again? Challenge accepted.

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https://www.ecowatch.com/schwarzenegger-trump-climate-change-2469141263.html

Schwarzenegger Unveils Legislative 'Blueprint' to Challenge Trump on Climate

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump's anti-climate polices, helped launch a comprehensive online database today to help local and state lawmakers advance environmental legislation.

"I'm pumped to unveil the Environmental Digital Legislative Handbook today, a resource for legislators around the country to find the blueprints on policies for energy efficiency, reducing pollution, recycling—you name it," Schwarzenegger announced on Facebook.

According to POLITICO, the website contains an extensive collection of legal and legislative research, voting records, and bill language and data to assist legislators in preparing bills on a vast range of environmental issues.

"There's no reason why we shouldn't have a digital legislative handbook—and make it available to people who wanted to create environmental action now—because of the situation with Trump,'' Schwarzenegger told POLITICO. "With his decision on the Paris agreement, it is even more so important to make this information available because it shows the kinds of wonderful things states can do without waiting for the federal government."

"The message to legislators with the project is now 'you have the power to do it yourselves,''' he added. "The reality is each state now goes to work and passes great legislation that helps them ... make great decisions."

The initiative is an joint effort of the USC Schwarzenegger Institute and the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators.

"We hope to assist legislators who are interested in advancing smart environmental policies by sharing best practices and actual legislation that is working successfully in a number of states already," the website states. "Governor Schwarzenegger has long insisted that voters aren't interested in Republican air or Democrat air but instead simply want clean air. That belief has guided our thought process when choosing the legislation to include in this database"

Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has emerged as a prominent environmentalist and renewable energyproponent. Last month, he threw his weight behind an extension of California's cap-and-trade program signed by his successor, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown.

During remarks, the former action star criticized Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement.

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Former Obama administration environmental staffers are preparing for combat against the officials in their former jobs.

President Trump's victory in November threw many Obama aides out of jobs and dramatically changed career prospects for those hoping to work on energy policy in a Hillary Clinton administration. Now, as they prepare to fight Trump's environmental agenda for the next four years, many former Obama staffers are flocking to new gigs on Capitol Hill and in state governments.

E&E SERIES

People to Watch 2017 logo

E&E News rounds up key players on energy and environmental policy. Click here to view the series.

Since taking office in January, Trump has made rolling back President Obama's environmental agenda central to his policy goals. Last week, Trump issued a sweeping executive order that knocked down some of Obama's most significant actions on climate change.

And the left, forced to rewrite its playbook, is increasingly looking to state leaders and members of Congress to play defense.

Democrats' multipronged approach to fighting Trump from outside the executive branch includes states attorneys general banding together to fight the administration in court (Greenwire, March 1), lawmakers beefing up their oversight on Capitol Hill and state officials aiming to advance aggressive environmental policies despite a retreat by the federal government.

"[T]he political power that can make the biggest difference resides with the governors, mayors and other elected officials who can pick up the climate-change mantle abandoned by the Trump administration and help the United States lead by example," John Podesta, who was chairman of Clinton's presidential campaign and Obama's top environmental adviser, wrote in a recent op-ed in The Washington Post.

"Working together, these leaders can serve as a powerful counterbalance to the lack of climate policy ambition that the Trump administration is demonstrating at the national and international levels."

'Gravitating toward states'

A spate of former Obama officials have landed in state government gigs since leaving the administration.

"It's not surprising that a lot of folks are gravitating toward states," said Ali Zaidi, a former energy official in the Obama White House who's now a senior adviser at Morrison & Foerster LLP.

Those jobs are attractive to Obama energy staffers because "it's an opportunity to ensure that some of the actions being contemplated and undertaken by this administration don't have the impact that the rhetoric would suggest that they might," Zaidi said.

Liz Purchia, who was a U.S. EPA communications aide under Obama, said work in the states will be similar to what happened under the George W. Bush administration, when California and a consortium of Northeastern states advanced their own aggressive climate change policies.

John Blair

John Blair. Photo courtesy of LinkedIn.

"There will be exponentially more than that happening at the state and local level now that the threats of climate change are better understood and more severe," said Purchia, who recently helped launch a communications firm that's been countering the Trump administration through messaging.

In New Mexico, former Interior Department official John Blair was named deputy secretary of state late last year. Blair was Interior's director of intergovernmental and external affairs after working in the House for Democratic Reps. Dan Kildee of Michigan and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. Even though the governor of New Mexico, Susana Martinez, is a Republican, Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver is a Democrat who was elected independently.

Former energy and transportation aide Shoshana Lew started this week as chief operating officer at the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, the agency announced. Lew was chief financial officer and a deputy assistant secretary at the Transportation Department under Obama; she was also a senior adviser at the Interior Department and a White House energy and climate adviser.

Shoshana Lew

Shoshana Lew. Photo courtesy of LinkedIn.

In Montana, former Obama aide Patrick Holmes was appointed natural resource policy adviser to Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock in January. Holmes worked at the Agriculture Department under Obama as chief of staff to the undersecretary for natural resources and environment.

Shara Mohtadi has joined the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority as a senior adviser. She previously worked on energy and natural resources in the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Brad Crowell, who was the Energy Department's top congressional liaison, was appointed director of Nevada's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources last year by Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval. Crowell's hire came prior to the November presidential election.

Oversight on Capitol Hill

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill are packing their offices with former Obama energy aides as they prepare for four years of Trump administration oversight.

For example, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the new ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has hired alumni of the Obama EPA for key committee posts.

They include Joe Goffman, who was the lead attorney in EPA's air office and one of the chief architects of the Obama administration's air rules. Goffman is now chief counsel on Carper's EPW Committee staff, according to the congressional database LegiStorm.

Another recent Carper hire is Christophe Tulou, who was senior adviser to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on the Chesapeake Bay. Tulou is now the EPW Committee's minority chief counsel, according to LegiStorm.

Other former veterans from the Obama EPA, White House and other federal agencies are also landing energy policy jobs on Capitol Hill.

Kristina Costa, who worked on the Clinton campaign and as an aide to Podesta in the White House, is now a legislative assistant for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Jon Monger, who was a policy adviser in EPA's transportation and air quality office, has started as Democratic counsel on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, according to LegiStorm.

Trent Bauserman

Trent Bauserman. Photo courtesy of LinkedIn.

Former leader of EPA's congressional and intergovernmental relations shop Nichole Distefano has been hired as legislative director for Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).

Will Niebling, former senior adviser for congressional and international affairs at EPA, is now legislative counsel for Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). Prior to joining EPA, Niebling worked for then-Delaware Democratic Sens. Ted Kaufman and Joe Biden.

Trent Bauserman, who worked at the White House Council on Environmental Quality and as Obama's legislative affairs liaison to the House, is now a senior policy adviser to House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). He's taken on the energy and environmental portfolio previously held by Mary Frances Repko, who recently moved over to Carper's EPW office. Bauserman was formerly an energy policy adviser to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.).

For Bauserman and other Capitol Hill veterans, "it was a natural fit to go right back" after the Obama administration left office, he said.

Candace Vahlsing

Candace Vahlsing. Photo courtesy of LinkedIn.

With the Trump administration in the executive branch, "providing a level of oversight and accountability of the administration is certainly an important role that I think Democrats on the Hill will undertake."

Candace Vahlsing, former White House senior policy adviser for energy and climate change, has landed as a senior adviser to Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet.

Former CEQ Associate Director of Legislative Affairs Stephenne Harding is now a legislative assistant for Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), according to LegiStorm.

Blake Androff, who headed communications at the Interior Department, is executive director at the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, which is charged with developing House Democrats' caucuswide messaging strategy (E&E Daily, Feb. 2).

see ALEC, SPN, state thinktanks

increasingly there are two americas, red and blue states, despite BO's famous speech; in some ways the South won the civil war, eventually. Southern strategy by Nixon after racist Dixiecrats defected to gop (they had set up anti-commie freedom schools to avoid desegregation). GOP is making it harder to vote, gerrymander to make minority vote less important, attacking unions and green.

The increasing polarysis and expense of attack ads in federal elections (driven up by CU tsunami of cash), RWI are looking at state level candidates, and even local. This may have begun with Rove judicial elections in Texas, later GA etc; AG scandal was attempt to purge those who would not do ideological will vs law; JCN/RAGA now working to elect, eg CO which was hard fought by ATI, much local resistance on local vs corp rights.