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Judge Orders Release of EPA Nominee Scott Pruitt’s Emails with Industry

February 17, 2017

A state court ordered Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to turn over more than 2,500 emails his office withheld from open records requests relating to communications with coal, oil, and gas corporations. The order came a day before the Senate is poised to confirm him as President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The Senate is set to vote on Pruitt’s confirmation at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, February 27. It is unclear if the order by Oklahoma District Court Judge Aletia Haynes Timmons late on Thursday afternoon will delay the vote.

Judge Timmons gave Pruitt’s office until Tuesday, February 21 to turn over the emails it withheld from the Center for Media and Democracy’s (CMD’s) January 2015 records request. The judge also gave Pruitt’s office just 10 days to turn over an undetermined number of documents that relate to five additional open records requests filed between November 2015 and August 2016.

According to the CMD, on February 10, Pruitt’s office “finally responded” to the oldest of the watchdog organization’s nine outstanding Open Records Act requests, but it provided just 411 of the more than 3,000 emails they had located.…

Trump’s Regulatory Rollback May Hit Roadblocks

February 15, 2017

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President Donald Trump’s drive to roll back federal regulations, especially from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), will not be simple or smooth, a veteran Washington, D.C., attorney said at a utility conference on February 8.

Speaking at the Energy, Utility, and Environment Conference (EUEC) in San Diego, Calif., Thomas Lorenzen, a partner with D.C.–based law firm Crowell & Moring, told attendees that the roadblocks standing in the way of a rapid rollback are many and varied.

One of Trump’s signature moves, his January 30 executive order that requires two rules to be repealed for every new rule published, isn’t going to be anywhere near as simple as it might appear, Lorenzen said.

“It’s really going to depend on the enabling statutes,” he noted, since many regulations exist because of mandates from Congress. “Many of these laws have not been revised in decades.”

Without changes in the law, the administration’s hands are often tied.

“It’s not clear how effective this order is going to be,” he said, pointing out that withdrawing or revising an existing rule requires a new rulemaking process.…

2017 Will be the Year for North American CCS, Expert Says

February 13, 2017

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Carbon capture and storage (CCS) in North America is about to have its year, Julio Friedmann, senior adviser for energy innovation at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said during the February 8 Global CCS Institute’s annual Americas Forum.

“We are just now like fully deployed and hopefully that will finally quash the idea, the persistent pernicious meme that CCS is some kooky technology that isn’t ready for prime time,” Friedmann said.

Coming into 2017, two commercial-scale CCS projects were operational in North America: SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Unit 3 coal-fired CCS retrofit in near Estevan, Saskatchewan (POWER’s Plant of the Year in 2015), and Shell Canada’s Quest CCS project on an oil sands upgrader in Alberta.

Just more than a month into the new year, an additional CCS project came online in Texas and another in Mississippi is reportedly days from reaching full operation.

Completion of the Petra Nova project, a massive CCS project near Houston, Texas, was announced in the first half of January.…

Dems Boycott Pruitt Committee Vote, Perry, Zinke Proceed to Full Senate

February 7, 2017

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Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are digging their heels in, refusing to allow a vote on President Donald Trump’s nominee for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt.

Pruitt’s nomination was due to come to a vote February 1, but when it came time to gavel in the meeting, none of the committee’s Democrats were there. Under committee rules, at least two members of the minority party must be in attendance for a vote to be held.

Republicans on the committee expressed disappointment that the Democrats wouldn’t show up, saying that Pruitt had been put through the ringer during his confirmation process, allegedly answering more questions than any other nominee for the role in recent history. “I hope this is not the new normal. We cannot afford for the EPA to go without an administrator for the foreseeable future,” committee Chairman Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said during the hearing.

Catherine McCabe, the former deputy regional administrator of the EPA’s Region 2 in New York City, is currently serving as acting administrator.…

Solar-Plus-Storage Could Increase Consumption and Emissions, Study Suggests

February 5, 2017

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Pairing energy storage with rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems has been widely touted as the path for greater deployment of renewable energy, but a new study from researchers at the University of Texas suggests doing so may actually increase overall energy consumption and emissions.

The study, “The Impacts of Storing Solar Energy in the Home to Reduce Reliance on the Utility, ” was based on data collected in 2014 by non-profit firm Pecan Street from 99 homes in the Austin, Texas, area with solar PV systems that were mostly in the 3-kW to 6-kW range. The homes did not have storage installed; rather, the study used operational data to estimate the impacts of adding it.

Two models were used, one (which the authors called “target zero”) that sought to keep the connection with the grid as close to 0 kWh as possible (in other words, minimizing both injections and demand), and another (called “minimize power”) that sought to maximize self-generation using forecast data for future demand and generation.…

As Trump Takes Over, Who Wields Power?

February 3, 2017

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What do we know as of February 1 about key Trump appointees responsible for administering White House policies affecting the power generation industry? Not much.

As the Trump administration settles in, how his teams at energy and environment agencies will implement his policy agenda remains unclear, as does his agenda. At the end of January, none of the Trump nominees for key energy and environment jobs had won Senate confirmation. The Senate Environment and Natural Resources committee approved former Texas Governor Rick Perry to be Department of Energy (DOE) secretary, by a bipartisan vote of 16–7 (the committee consists of 12 Republicans and 11 Democrats). Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) got the nod to head the Interior Department by a 16–6 vote. Neither nomination has been scheduled for full Senate consideration.

Rick Perry, a former governor of Texas, is Trump’s pick as energy secretary.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee the same day punted on the nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to be Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief, putting the vote off to the next day, February 1.…