Pop quiz time
FERC meets, battery fires, saying goodbye to the Amazon
PRESENTED BY POP-TARTS
🎶 one of these things is not like the others… 🎶
“If we lose the Amazon, it would be problematic for humanity.”
“The Earth is mostly ocean, and it’s becoming more ocean.”
“A record 1,313 migrants were reported to have died or went missing off the Tunisian coast last year.”
Matt Stoller on fear and consolidation in the Permian Basin.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury and Department of Energy have received more than 46,000 applications for the Inflation Reduction Act’s Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit Program in 2023, four times the capacity of the program to support. The applications were for about 8 gigawatts of renewable generation, and around 2 GW will be funded. The 2024 round of the program will be opening soon.
The monthly open meeting of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, now dominated by a pro-fracking majority, begins at 1 pm, and will be held at Howard University School of Law. Among the agenda items is the Saguaro Connector Pipeline, intended to carry nearly 3 billion cubic feet of natural gas from Texas’s Permian Basin across the Mexican border for export across the Pacific.
In the House, Republicans are going after environmental policies on multiple fronts:
At 10 am, the Homeland Security subcommittee chaired by Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.) will investigate the fire threat of lithium-ion batteries, instead of, say, the fire threat of gasoline, natural gas, oil, and other combustible fossil fuels.
At 2 pm, the Natural Resources oversight subcommittee attacks the Biden administration’s land management policies, which incorporate environmental considerations into land use decisions through natural capital accounting. Republicans are aghast that the Biden administration wants to “fight the climate crisis, build a strong and sustainable economy, and advance economic equity.” The witness is Bureau of Land Management advisor Henry Wykowski, a former staffer for Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.).
The primary anti-environmental hearing of the day is the Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee’s 10:30 am hearing about constraining EPA’s ability to regulate soot pollution with new legislation that would completely gut the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, in response to the EPA’s long-awaited strengthening of soot standards last week. Earthjustice lawer Seth Johnson is testifying in favor of clean air; long-time GOP operative John Eunice, now deputy director of Georgia’s environmental agency, joins industry lobbyists in favor of pollution.
Also, the Science Committee hosts top federal science officials for a hearing on securing the U.S. science and technology enterprise at 10 am, and Foreign Affairs discusses the Russian nuclear energy sector at 2 pm.
Hearings on the Hill:
10 AM: House Science, Space, and Technology
Examining Federal Science Agency Actions to Secure the U.S. Science and Technology Enterprise10 AM: House Homeland Security
Emergency Management and Technology
Examining Fire Hazards: Lithium-Ion Batteries and Other Threats to Fire Safety10:30 AM: House Energy and Commerce
Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials
Constraining EPA's Ability to Regulate Soot Pollution2 PM: House Foreign Affairs
Europe
Going Nuclear on Rosatom: Ending Global Dependence on Putin's Nuclear Energy Sector2 PM: House Natural Resources
Oversight and Investigations
Land Management: The National Strategy to Develop Environmental Economic Decisions
Climate Action Today:
1 PM: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
February Open Meeting
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