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      Biden just betrayed the planet – and his own campaign vows | Rebecca Solnit

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      The Willow project is an act of terrorism against the climate, and the Biden administration has just approved it. This massive oil-drilling project in the wilderness of northern Alaska goes against science and the administration’s many assurances that it cares about climate and agrees that we must make a swift transition away from fossil fuel. Like the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, Joe Biden seems to think that if we do some good things for the climate we can also do some very bad things and somehow it will all even out.To make that magical thinking more obvious and to try to smooth over broad opposition, the US federal government also just coughed up some protections against drilling in the Arctic Ocean and elsewhere in the National Petroleum Reserve (and only approved three of the five drilling sites for ConocoPhillips’ invasion of this wilderness). Of course, this is like saying, “We’re going to kill your mother but we’re sending guards to protect your grandmother.” It doesn’t make your mom less dead. With climate you’re dealing with physics and math before you’re dealing with morality. All the carbon and methane emissions count, and they need to decrease rapidly in this decade. As Bill McKibben likes to say, you can’t bargain with physics.You can try to bargain with the public, but the motivation behind this decision is hard to figure out. The deal was inherited from the Trump administration, and rejecting it would have been a break with convention, but convention dooms us, and we need the break.Biden was elected in no small part by the participation of young voters who supported his strong climate platform. As a candidate he promised: “And by the way, no more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period.” Six million letters and 2.3m comments opposed to the project were sent to the White House, many from young people galvanized by social media. The American public, Republican minority aside, is strongly engaged with the reality of climate crisis now and the urgency of doing something about it.I call it an act of terrorism, because this drilling project in Alaska produces petroleum, which will be burned, which will send carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where it will contribute to climate chaos that will affect people in the South Pacific, the tropics, the circumpolar Arctic, will affect the melting of the Greenland ice shield (this month reaching a shocking 50F warmer than normal). It doesn’t just produce petroleum; it produces huge quantities of it, resulting in an estimated 278m metric tons of carbon emissions.This makes it, like the Permian Basin oil extraction in the US south-west and the tar sands in Alberta, a carbon bomb. Former vice-president Al Gore recently put it this way: “The proposed expansion of oil and gas drilling in Alaska is recklessly irresponsible … The pollution it would generate will not only put Alaska Native and other local communities at risk, it is incompatible with the ambition we need to achieve a net zero future.”Earlier, the New York Times reported, “The administration says the country must pivot away from fossil fuels but backed a project set to produce more than 100,000 barrels of oil each day for 30 years.” In 30 years it will be 2053, three years after we are supposed to have achieved a fully fossil-free future.There is actual bargaining in the government’s record of decision, stating that “Permittee shall offset 50% of the projected net [greenhouse gas emissions] … in accordance with US commitments under the Paris Agreement. GHGs shall be offset through reforestation of land …” Pretending that trees are our atmospheric janitorial service belies both the ways that forests across the globe are devastated by climate crisis – burgeoning pests, drought, fire, ecosystems changing faster than trees can adapt – and that planting trees does not necessarily result in a healthy long-lasting forest.Each tree, according to this document, can sequester 48lbs of carbon dioxide a year. Except that tiny saplings will not be doing that, and it will be too late to help our current climate goals by the time the trees, if they survive, are full-grown. I asked a friend with a talent for math to crunch the data; he concluded that “12.8bn trees could sequester the produced carbon in one year; or, 1/100th of that – 128m trees – could sequester the produced carbon in 100 years”. That’s not a solution to emitting those 278m metric tons of carbon dioxide in the next few years.Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic, an Indigenous Alaskan organization, pointed out in a letter to Biden that this project means devastation: “Approval of a project the size of Willow would be climate suicide. Coastal villages in Alaska are losing land to erosion at breakneck speed, permafrost thaw is causing dramatic changes to the ecosystem and the destruction of oil and other infrastructure, and Alaska Natives are at risk of losing their jobs, homes, and lives in a place which is warming at four times faster than the rest of the world.”We are already failing to stop runaway climate change. Adding this carbon bomb to the total makes it worse – both for the actual damage to the climate and for the signal the US is sending to the world. The Biden administration has made a colossal mistake.
      Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses More

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      Why Biden’s approval of Willow drilling project is ‘a colossal stain’ on his legacy

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      Joe Biden continues to confound on the climate crisis. Hailed as America’s first “climate president”, Biden signed sweeping, landmark legislation to tackle global heating last year and has warned that rising temperatures are an “existential threat to humanity”. And yet, on Monday, his administration decided to approve one of the largest oil drilling projects staged in the US in decades.The green light given to the Willow development on the remote tundra of Alaska’s northern Arctic coast, swatting aside the protests of millions of online petitioners, progressives in Congress and even Al Gore, will have global reverberations.There are more than 600m barrels of oil available to be dislodged by ConocoPhillips over the next 30 years, effectively adding the emissions of the entire country of Belgium, via just one project, to further heat the atmosphere.The scale of Willow is vast, with more than 200 oil wells, several new pipelines, a central processing plant, an airport and a gravel mine set to enable the extraction of oil long beyond the time scientists say that wealthy countries should have kicked the habit, in order to avoid disastrous global heating.Biden’s approval of this is “a colossal and reprehensible stain on his environmental legacy”, according to Raena Garcia, fossil fuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth. Even a group of Biden’s Democratic allies, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, attacked the decision as ignoring “the voices of the people of Nuiqsut, our frontline communities, and the irrefutable science that says we must stop building projects like this to slow the ever more devastating impacts of climate change”.But the approval of the project is consistent with an administration that has approved nearly 100 more oil and gas drilling leases than Donald Trump had at the same point in his presidency, federal data shows. Biden may have promised “no more drilling on federal lands, period” during his presidential campaign, but the reality has been very different – not only have the hydrocarbons continued to flow, they are in a sort of boom, with both oil and gas production forecast to hit record levels year.The White House can point out it is in the middle of a set of confusing, and often contradictory, set of circumstances. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine roiled global energy markets and triggered a push to build new export terminals to ship US oil and gas to European allies, even as Biden toiled to pass $370bn in clean energy spending in the Inflation Reduction Act.Younger, progressive voters have urged the administration to do more on climate – the youth-led Sunrise movement said the Willow decision “abandons millions of young people” ahead of the 2024 election – even as Republicans have continued to hammer Biden for waging a supposed “war” on domestic energy and blamed him for rising gasoline prices.A series of court challenges, and a closely-divided Congress, have also forced Biden’s hand. All members of Alaska’s Congressional delegation, including newly-elected Democrat Mary Peltola, called for Willow to be approved, citing thousands of new jobs. “We all recognize the need for cleaner energy, but there is a major gap between our capability to generate it and our daily needs,” Peltola wrote in an op-ed on Friday with Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, the Republican senators from Alaska.Biden himself appears to share this view – in his recent state of the union speech, the president said “we’re going to need oil for at least another decade”, before adding “and beyond that”, after boos from some lawmakers. This sort of “rhetorical dualism (is) a call for ‘one last fossil bender before America goes green and sober,’” according to a note by analysts at ClearView Energy Partners on Sunday.Administration officials have stressed that the allowable Willow project is smaller than ConocoPhillips hoped, with three drilling sites allowed instead of the five proposed, and have signaled that the company would’ve likely prevailed in a court challenge if the project was rejected, given it has held leases in the region for more than 20 years.The department of interior has also unveiled proposed rules it has framed as a “firewall” against further drilling, with all of the US’ Arctic Ocean off-limits to future oil and gas exploration, as well as the blocking of leases on more than half of the 23m acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, a vast area of the north slope that contains wildlife considered imperative for the subsistence of local native communities.This conservation action, appropriately announced in a whiplash-inducing way the day before the Willow decision was made public, shows that Biden “continues to deliver on the most aggressive climate agenda in American history”, the department of interior claimed.“Let’s be clear – this project, which the interior department has substantially reduced in size under considerable legal constraints, won’t stop us from achieving the ambitious clean energy goals president Biden has set,” an administration official said on Monday.But critics point out that the brutal reality of Earth’s climate system doesn’t recognize political expediency or future good intentions. The International Energy Agency, among others, has warned that no new oil and gas fields can be developed if the world is to avoid breaching temperature thresholds that scientists say will tip the planet into increasingly dangerous heatwaves, flooding, wildfires and other impacts.For all of the new wind and solar projects spurred by last year’s climate bill, and Biden’s enthusiastic promotion of electric vehicles, Willow is a sobering reality check – the project will wipe out the emissions cuts provided by all renewable energy developments over the next decade, adding the equivalent of 2m new gas-guzzling cars to the roads.“We don’t need to prop up the fossil fuel industry with new, multi-year projects that are a recipe for climate chaos,” as Gore told the Guardian on Friday. “Instead, we must end the expansion of oil, gas and coal and embrace the abundant climate solutions at our fingertips.” More

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      Oil firms have internally dismissed swift climate action, House panel says

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      Oil firms have internally dismissed swift climate action, House panel saysDocuments show the fossil fuel industry ‘has no real plans to clean up its act’ and took steps to continue business as usual Some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies have internally dismissed the need to swiftly move to renewable energy and cut planet-heating emissions, despite publicly portraying themselves as concerned about the climate crisis, a US House of Representatives committee has found.Documents obtained from companies including Exxon, Shell, BP and Chevron show that the fossil fuel industry “has no real plans to clean up its act and is barreling ahead with plans to pump more dirty fuels for decades to come”, said Carolyn Maloney, the chair of the House oversight committee, which has investigated the sector for the past year.Biden accuses oil companies of ‘war profiteering’ and threatens windfall taxRead moreThe committee accused the oil firms of a “long-running greenwashing campaign” by committing to major new projects to extract and burn fossil fuels despite espousing their efforts to go green.In reality, executives, the documents show, were derisive of the need to cut emissions, disparaged climate activists and worked to secure US government tax credits for carbon capture projects that would allow them to continue business as usual. Maloney, a Democrat, said that “these companies know their climate pledges are inadequate, but are prioritizing big oil’s record profits over the human costs of climate change”.Ro Khanna, another Democrat who sits on the committee, said that the industry’s approach was one of “intimidation” towards critics, as part of a “cynical strategy” to avoid acting on the climate emergency. He added that the committee will pass on the documents to “other entities”, raising the possibility of charges laid by the US Department of Justice.Khanna rejected allegations from Republicans that the Democrat-led committee had engaged in a sort of corporate witch-hunt. “The industry was the one out there continuing to make false statements about climate change and climate legislation,” he said. “Our goal is to get them to stop engaging in climate misinformation.”Several of the company executives appeared before the committee, where they faced accusations their companies knew of the dangers of the climate crisis for decades, only to hide this from the public. Darren Woods, chief executive of Exxon, said last year that his company’s claims over climate change were “consistent with science” at the time.“Oil and gas will continue to be necessary for the foreseeable future,” Woods added in his testimony to the committee. “We currently do not have the adequate alternative energy sources.”Exxon, like most other large oil firms, has said it backs the Paris climate accords, where governments agreed to not allow the global temperature to rise 1.5C or more above pre-industrial times to help avoid worsening heatwaves, droughts, floods and other disastrous impacts.Privately, however, these companies downplayed any need to scale down their fossil fuel activity and even to ramp it up, the committee found.Internal documents from BP in 2017 show that the company intends to “significantly increase development in regions with oil potential” and to “focus primarily on projects in current basins that generate the highest rate of return”.One BP executive subsequently asserted in an internal email that the company had “no obligation to minimize GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions”, while another admitted that any of its divestments of fossil fuels “may not directly lead to a reduction in absolute global emissions”.Industry insiders communicated with Exxon consultants about doubts over the veracity of climate science, the documents show, while a strategy slide presented to the Chevron board by its chief executive, Mike Wirth, states that the company is to “continue to invest” in fossil fuels even if others retreat from oil and gas.A Shell tweet posted in 2020 asking others what they could do to reduce emissions resulted in a torrent of ridicule from Twitter users. A communications executive for the company wrote privately that criticism that the tweet was “gaslighting” the public was “not totally without merit” and that the tweet was “pretty tone deaf”. He added: “We are, after all, in a tweet like this implying others need to sacrifice without focusing on ourselves.”The UK-headquartered oil company also poured scorn on climate activists, with a communications specialist at the company emailing in 2019 that he wished “bedbugs” upon the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led US climate group.Climate campaigners said the committee’s work showed that the fossil fuel industry was continuing to lie over global heating by pretending to act on the issue.“The key revelation in this report is that big oil has no intention of actually following through on its climate commitments,” said Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media.“It isn’t transitioning to clean energy, it’s doubling down on methane gas, and it’s actively lobbying against renewable energy solutions. This is the big tobacco playbook all over again: pretend you care about a problem, but continue your deadly business as usual.”TopicsOil and gas companiesHouse of RepresentativesFossil fuelsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Democrats ditch Manchin’s ‘dirty deal’ after opposition from climate activists

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      Democrats ditch Manchin’s ‘dirty deal’ after opposition from climate activistsSenator had proposed to attach energy bill to appropriations legislation but plan fails amid criticism of party leadership A last-ditch effort to force through legislation that would weaken environmental protections and fast-track energy projects has failed.Joe Manchin, the fossil fuel-friendly senator from West Virginia, had attempted to latch the controversial deregulation and permitting reforms to a must-pass defense bill – after failing to get his so-called “dirty deal” passed earlier this year.The proposal to attach his bill to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), an annual appropriations bill that will be voted on later this week, was reportedly supported by Joe Biden and House leader Nancy Pelosi.But progressive lawmakers and hundreds of climate, public health and youth groups opposed the move to pass such consequential reforms without proper scrutiny. Manchin’s legislation would weaken environmental safeguards and expedite permits to construct pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure while restricting public input and legal challenges.On Tuesday, more than 750 organizations sent a letter to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and congressional leadership opposing what they call a “cruel and direct attack on environmental justice communities”. Attaching the “dirty deal” to the NDAA, which would have been one of Pelosi’s final acts as speaker, threatened her legacy and the party’s climate credibility, the groups said.The deal was ditched – for now at least – amid mounting criticism aimed at the Democratic leadership.How fossil fuel firms use Black leaders to ‘deceive’ their communitiesRead moreEnvironmental groups welcomed the news, but warned the fossil fuel industry would not give up.Ariel Moger, government and political affairs director at Friends of the Earth, said: “Manchin’s efforts to tie his dirty deal to any must-pass legislation he can get his hands on are undemocratic and potentially devastating for the planet. With momentum on the side of frontline communities, the fight will continue until the bill dies at the end of this Congress.”Jeff Ordower, 350.org’s North America director, said: “Senator Manchin cannot get away with last-ditch efforts to push forward his fossil fuel fast tracking bill. The industry will keep trying these secretive, last minute efforts to push forward dirty deals, so we will continue to be alert and we won’t let up the fight.”Manchin, who receives more campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry than any other lawmaker, warned of dire consequences for America’s energy security. He said: “The American people will pay the steepest price for Washington once again failing to put common sense policy ahead of toxic tribal politics. This is why the American people hate politics in Washington.”Manchin’s bill, described by environmentalists as a “fossil fuel wishlist”, was first attached as a side deal to Biden’s historic climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, but was eventually thwarted after widespread opposition from progressive Democrats and civil society groups. It included limits on legal challenges to new energy projects including the 303-mile Mountain Valley gas pipeline across the Appalachian mountains that has been stalled by concerned communities and environmental groups in West Virginia and Virginia.He and other proponents have said that fast-track permitting is needed for a rapid transition to renewables and in order to modernize the country’s outdated power transmission systems.But Jeff Merkley, the Democratic senator representing Oregon, said Manchin’s deal was a dirty one, and had nothing to do with renewables. “This [bill] will give a whole lot more impetus to fossil fuels and run over the top of ordinary people raising concerns, that’s why it’s a dirty deal. This is a real travesty in terms of legislative deliberation, and in terms of environmental justice.”On Tuesday, Rashida Tlaib, the Democratic congresswoman from Michigan, had called on her colleagues to stand up against the fossil fuel industry and the undemocratic manner in which leadership was trying to push through the bill without scrutiny. She said: “It’s outrageous enough that Congress wants to spend another $847bn on our military-industrial complex, the largest annual military budget in history; we cannot allow them to then ram through Manchin’s dirty deal in the process.”The NDAA is considered a must-pass bill because it authorizes pay increases and compensation for harmed troops, as well as establishing the following year’s personnel, arms purchasing and geopolitical policies.Environmental and climate justice groups warned Democrats that frontline communities would not forget and would hold them accountable in 2024 if the deregulation bill was pushed through.“To think that this is happening at the hands of Democrats, and their very last action of power is going to be to hurt our communities and strip our voice is really hurtful. I feel betrayed,” said Maria Lopez Nunez, deputy director of the New Jersey-based Ironbound Community Corporation and member of the White House environmental justice advisory council.“For any Democrat that’s listening, if you’re playing along to this charade, our community will call you out and we will hold you accountable.”On Wednesday, Manchin launched yet another bid to garner Republican support for his bill in the Senate, in hope of getting it through as an appendage to the NDAA. It seems likely to fail.“Nobody wants Manchin’s filthy lump of coal, no matter how many ways he tries to polish it,” said Jean Su, energy justice program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer need to see this dirty deal for what it is and leave it as a failed footnote in the 2022 history books.” TopicsJoe ManchinFossil fuelsDemocratsUS CongressUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Senate to vote on funding bill to avert shutdown after Manchin measure scrapped

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      Senate to vote on funding bill to avert shutdown after Manchin measure scrappedBoth parties opposed the measure on energy permits, which critics said would gut environmental protections The US Senate was expected on Tuesday to hold a key procedural vote on a funding bill to avert a federal government shutdown, after a tense standoff over a controversial energy-permitting provision proposed by the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin ended with its withdrawal.After the permitting provision drew opposition from both parties, Manchin said he had asked that it be withdrawn.McConnell endorses bipartisan bill to prevent efforts to overturn US elections Read moreIn a statement late on Tuesday afternoon, the Democrat said: “It is unfortunate that members of the United States Senate are allowing politics to put the energy security of our nation at risk.“The last several months, we have seen first-hand the destruction that is possible as Vladimir Putin continues to weaponize energy. A failed vote on something as critical as comprehensive permitting reform only serves to embolden leaders like Putin who wish to see America fail.“For that reason and my firmly held belief that we should never come to the brink of a government shutdown over politics, I have asked Majority Leader [Chuck] Schumer to remove the permitting language from the continuing resolution we will vote on this evening.”The measure was sharply criticized by progressives led by Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, and was struggling to gain support among Republicans, even those who have long championed permitting reform.Without action, government funding will run out at midnight on Friday. If Congress fails to pass a bill by then, it would cause a messy shutdown. With Democrats in control of both chambers, that could generate what many believe would be an avoidable headache just weeks before the crucial midterm elections.Before he withdrew his proposal, Manchin argued in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that it would enact “common-sense permitting reforms” and “help secure America’s energy future”.But Sanders had already said he would vote against any measure that included Manchin’s proposal, which critics say would gut clean water and environmental protections.In a tweet, Sanders lashed out at the senators and editorial boards supporting the plan. He said: “I do believe the future of the planet is more important than the short-term profits of the fossil fuel industry. Defeat the Big Oil side deal.”The proposal was part of a deal between Manchin and Schumer to secure Manchin’s vote for Joe Biden’s landmark healthcare and climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).After more than a year of negotiations, Manchin agreed to give his necessary 50th vote to the plan, which made good on long-sought Democratic policy ambitions and is credited with boosting morale among the party’s base ahead of the midterm vote.With that bill signed into law, however, Schumer struggled to find 60 votes for Manchin’s permitting reform. Several Senate Democrats argued that the move would undermine the climate proposals in the IRA, which were already greatly scaled back to appease Manchin.The permitting provision would have fast-tracked the process for energy infrastructure, including large fossil fuel projects critics say will undermine climate goals. It would also make it easier for the Mountain Valley pipeline to proceed, a top priority for Manchin long delayed by environmental violations and judicial rulings.When progressives learned of Manchin’s proposal, they revolted. In a letter to colleagues last week, Sanders implored Democrats not to support the “disastrous side deal” that he warned would “make it easier for the fossil fuel industry to destroy the planet and pollute the environment”.The choice before Congress was clear, Sanders wrote. “We can listen to the fossil fuel industry and climate deniers who are spending huge amounts of money on lobbying and campaign contributions to pass this side deal. Or we can listen to the scientists and the environmental community who are telling us loudly and clearly to reject it.”Tim Kaine, a Democrat of Virginia, also said he would vote against the permitting reform. Kaine said he was not consulted on the potential impact of greenlighting the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would run through his state.Other top Democrats said keeping the government running was the bigger priority.“I am disappointed that unrelated permitting reform was attached to this bill. This is a controversial matter that should be debated on its own merits,” said Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the appropriations committee. “However, with four days left in the fiscal year, we cannot risk a government shutdown; we must work to advance this bill.”The proposal also divided Republicans. Though the GOP has long pushed for permitting reform, the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, urged his caucus to oppose Manchin’s proposal. Most of the chamber’s 50 Republicans, still smarting from Manchin’s change of heart on the IRA, appeared poised to vote against the measure.In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Manchin said he anticipated opposition from Sanders and “extreme far-left” Democrats, but not from Republicans.“What I didn’t expect is that Mitch McConnell and my Republican friends would be stacking up with Bernie or trying to get the same outcome by not passing permitting reform,” he said.Manchin’s proposal was attached to a stopgap measure that would fund the federal government through 16 December, thereby allowing negotiations to resume after the November vote. Included in the funding bill are billions of dollars in support for Ukraine; an extension of a Federal Drug Administration user fee program that was set to expire; relief funds for the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi; money for resettling Afghan migrants; and assistance to help families afford rising energy costs.Schumer was expected to strip Manchin’s proposal from the bill if necessary. Manchin insisted he was “optimistic” about the bill’s chances, and expected to win support from most Democrats and enough Republican votes to secure its passage.But then came his statement on Tuesday.“We should never depend on other countries to supply the energy we need when we can produce it here at home,” he said, adding: “Inaction is not a strategy for energy independence and security.”TopicsUS SenateJoe ManchinUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansUS domestic policyFossil fuelsnewsReuse this content More

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      Schumer and Manchin’s ‘dirty side deal’ to fast-track pipelines faces backlash

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      Schumer and Manchin’s ‘dirty side deal’ to fast-track pipelines faces backlashScientists and environmental groups call proposed legislation a ‘giveaway’ to fossil fuel industry that will gut protections Scientists, health experts and environmental groups have condemned new legislation negotiated in secret by the fossil-fuel-friendly Democratic senator Joe Manchin and the Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, which will fast-track major energy projects by gutting clean water and environmental protections.Senator Joe Manchin unveils bill that would expedite federal energy projectsRead moreThe permitting bill published on Wednesday was the result of a deal between Manchin and Democratic leaders, which secured the West Virginia senator’s vote for Joe Biden’s historic climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, which Manchin held up for months.The bill mandates all permits for the Mountain Valley pipeline (MVP), a project long delayed by environmental violations and judicial rulings, be issued within 30 days of passage and strips away virtually any scope for judicial review.Democratic leaders want to push through Manchin’s bill without debate or analysis, and are expected to attach the legislation to a funding measure Congress must pass before 1 October.Energy industry associations have widely welcomed the reforms but opposition from Democrats and Republicans could scupper the deal.Critics say the bill is a giveaway to the fossil fuel lobby, paving the way for oil and gas production that will stop the US meeting its obligations to cut greenhouse gases and lead to further environmental injustices for people of color, Indigenous communities and low-income areas. It slashes judicial and state powers and oversight, handing Washington greater control over major projects.“This is not permitting reform,” said the Greenpeace USA co-executive director Ebony Twilley Martin. “This is permitting a giveaway that benefits those who continue to line their pockets at the expense of those affected by climate disasters. Our country cannot afford any new oil, gas or coal projects if we’re going to avoid climate catastrophe.”On Thursday, more than 400 scientists, doctors and nurses delivered a letter imploring Schumer and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to reject the deal. “The scientific consensus is now crystal clear … fossil fuel projects carry enormous risks to public health … we need to leave oil, gas and coal in the ground and turn off the spigot of carbon pouring into the air.”Jennifer K Falcon, an Indigenous environmentalist from the Ikiya Collective, said: “Our communities have already lost so much from environmental racism but there is so much to save. [They] are not sacrifice zones for corrupt politicians like Manchin and Schumer who benefit from big oil’s windfall profits.“The science is clear about the worsening climate crisis. We have no time to waste on dirty side deals.”Manchin has received more campaign contributions from fossil fuel industries than any other lawmaker this election cycle, according to Open Secrets.The legislative side deal requires Biden to designate at least 25 energy projects of strategic national importance for federal review within 90 days of passage. The projects must include at least five that produce, process, transport or store fossil fuels or biofuels, as well as six that are not fossil fuels and four mining projects.The bill mandates a two-year limit on environmental reviews for major projects – regardless of their complexity and potential for harming the environment, water supplies and human health.According to Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, the bill contains the most significant loss of protections under the bedrock National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) and the Clean Water Act since at least the last Bush administration, when Republicans had full control of Congress.“Any member of Congress who claims this disastrous legislation is vital for ramping up renewables either doesn’t understand or is ignoring the enormous fossil fuel giveaways at stake,” Hartl said.The bill was negotiated under a cloak of secrecy. Passage through the Senate is far from assured. A small group of progressive Democrats are looking to separate Manchin’s legislation from the stopgap funding bill, so they can vote against the permitting bill without voting to shut down the government.Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon has organised a letter to Schumer, with the support of Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont – a move that mirrors a similar plea by 77 House progressives earlier this month.The letter, which was leaked to Politico, states: “We have heard extensive concerns from the environmental justice community regarding the proposed permitting reforms and are writing to convey the importance of those concerns, and to let you know that we share them.”On Tuesday, Schumer said he planned to add permitting reform to the spending bill and “get it done”.But Republicans who want more radical regulatory and permitting reforms may also vote against the bill, which requires 60 votes to move to the House. Earlier this month, 46 Republicans signed on to an alternative permitting bill introduced by the other West Virginian senator, Shelley Moore Capito.Schumer’s decision to capitulate to Manchin has angered progressives.Manchin agreed to back his party’s historic climate legislation before the midterm elections but only after negotiating a side deal to fast-track the MVP, a shale gas pipeline which would stretch 303 miles across the Appalachian mountains from north-western West Virginia to southern Virginia.Before construction was suspended, the MVP had produced more than 350 water quality violations. Manchin’s bill exempts the MVP from the Endangered Species Act, which experts say will push two species – the Roanoke logperch and the candy darter – much closer toward extinction.On Wednesday, the Democratic senator Tim Kaine, of Virginia, said he could not support the “highly unusual provisions” regarding the MVP which “eliminate any judicial review”. Kaine said he had been excluded from talks, even though 100 miles of the pipeline would run through his state.Raúl Grijalva, chair of the House natural resources committee, said: “These dangerous permitting shortcuts have been on industry wishlists for years. And now they’ve added the Mountain Valley pipeline approval as the rotten cherry on top of the pile.“The very fact that this fossil fuel brainchild is being force-fed into must-pass government funding speaks to its unpopularity. My colleagues and I don’t want this. The communities that are already hit hardest by the fossil fuel industry’s messes certainly don’t want or deserve this. Even Republicans don’t want this. Right now, our focus should be on keeping the government open, not destructive, unrelated riders.”In favor of the bill Gregory Wetstone, chief executive of the American Council on Renewable Energy, said it “includes provisions that will help streamline the transmission approval process, improving our ability to meet our nation’s decarbonisation goals”.Heather Zichal, chief executive of the American Clean Power Association, said: “Our current permitting system is overly cumbersome and mired in delays, hamstringing our ability to grow the clean energy economy.”TopicsUS SenateFossil fuelsOil (Environment)Gas (Environment)Oil (Business)Gas (Business)Joe ManchinnewsReuse this content More

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      Senator Joe Manchin unveils bill that would expedite federal energy projects

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      Senator Joe Manchin unveils bill that would expedite federal energy projectsThe centrist Democrat believes he has votes to pass the measure, which has met with resistance from the left The US senator Joe Manchin released an energy permitting bill on Wednesday to speed up fossil fuel and clean energy projects.The bill is expected to be attached to a measure to temporarily fund the government that Congress must pass before 1 October. The legislation would require the federal government to issue permits for Equitrans Midstream Corp’s long-delayed $6.6bn Mountain Valley Pipeline to take natural gas between West Virginia, Manchin’s home state, and Virginia.The wider funding bill needs approval of the House and Senate and to be signed by Joe Biden to become law. Manchin’s staff told reporters that he believed the funding bill will would get the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate with the permitting measure attached.The permitting measure from Manchin, a centrist Democrat and an important swing vote in the 50-50 Senate, would require Biden to designate 25 energy projects of strategic national importance for speedy federal review.The USelectricity grid needs expansion and fixes as some of its major transmission lines are 50 years old. Improving transmission lines would help renewable projects like wind and solar farms in rural areas get clean power to cities.Biden’s landmark climate and spending bill – what’s in it, and what got cut?Read moreThe bill also sets a two-year target for environmental reviews on energy projects that need to be completed by more than one federal agency.Progressive lawmakers and environmental groups have been concerned that the bill would speed fossil fuel projects while undermining US environmental laws. In the House of Representatives, 77 Democrats this month asked the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to keep the side deal out of the funding bill.Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, said after the bill was released he could not support its “highly unusual provisions” regarding Mountain Valley pipeline.Kaine said they “eliminate any judicial review” for key parts of the pipeline approval process and strip jurisdiction away from a US court of appeals for cases involving it. He said he had not been included in talks about the measure, even though 100 miles (160 km) of the pipeline would run through his state.While the bill would speed up the processes required by a bedrock US green law called the National Environmental Policy Act, which mandates reviews of major projects, “it doesn’t amend the underlying statutes”, a member of Manchin’s staff told reporters in a call. Getting at least 10 Republican senators to support the measure could be complicated after Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from Manchin’s state, issued her own bill this month more favorable to fossil fuels.Some Republicans were also concerned because Manchin voted for Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which contained $369 bn for climate and energy security.Speaking about the unwillingness of some Republicans to support permitting, Manchin said on Tuesday: “If they’re willing to say they’re going to shut down the government because of a personal attack on me, or by not looking at the good of the country, that is what makes people sick about politics.”TopicsJoe ManchinUS SenateEnergyJoe BidenFossil fuelsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Criticism intensifies after big oil admits ‘gaslighting’ public over green aims

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      Criticism intensifies after big oil admits ‘gaslighting’ public over green aimsFury as ‘explosive’ files reveal largest oil companies contradicted public statements and wished bedbugs upon critical activists Criticism in the US of the oil industry’s obfuscation over the climate crisis is intensifying after internal documents showed companies attempted to distance themselves from agreed climate goals, admitted “gaslighting” the public over purported efforts to go green, and even wished critical activists be infested by bedbugs.The communications were unveiled as part of a congressional hearing held in Washington DC, where an investigation into the role of fossil fuels in driving the climate crisis produced documents obtained from the oil giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP.“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they wish bedbugs on you, then you win,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of Sunrise. The organization accused Shell of a “legacy of violence and of ignoring the wellbeing of communities across the globe”.Pakistan floods ‘made up to 50% worse by global heating’Read moreThe revelations are part of the third hearing held by the House committee on oversight and reform on how the fossil-fuel industry sought to hamper the effort to address the climate crisis. Democrats, who lead the committee, called top executives from the oil companies to testify last year, in which they denied they had misled the public.The new documents are “the latest evidence that oil giants keep lying about their commitments to help solve the climate crisis and should never be trusted by policymakers”, said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity.“If there is one thing consistent about the oil and gas majors’ position on climate, it’s their utter inability to tell the truth,” Wiles added.Ro Khanna, co-chair of the committee, said the new documents are “explosive” and show a “culture of intense disrespect” to climate activists. The oil giants’ “climate pledges rely on unproven technology, accounting gimmicks and misleading language to hide the reality,” he added. “Big oil executives are laughing at the people trying to protect our planet while they knowingly work to destroy it.”Several of the emails and memos within the released trove of documents appear to show executives, staffers and lobbyists internally contradicting public pronouncements by their companies to act on lowering planet-heating emissions.Exxon, which recently announced profits of $17.9bn for the three months until June, more than three times what it earned in the same quarter a year ago, has publicly said it is “committed” to the Paris climate agreement to curb global heating.However, the documents released by the Democratic-led House committee include an August 2019 memo by an executive to Darren Woods, Exxon’s chief executive, on the need to “remove reference to Paris agreement” from an announcement by an industry lobby group that Exxon is a member of.Such a statement “could create a potential commitment to advocate on the Paris agreement goals”, the executive warned. A separate note on a 2018 Exxon presentation also admitted that biofuels derived from algae was still “decades away from the scale we need”, despite the company long promoting it as a way to lower emissions.Shell, meanwhile, has committed to becoming a “net zero” emissions business by 2050, and yet the documents show a private 2020 communication in which employees are urged to never “imply, suggest, or leave it open for possible misinterpretation that (net zero) is a Shell goal or target”. Shell has “no immediate plans to move to a net-zero emissions portfolio” over the next 10 to 20 years, it added.A Shell tweet posted in 2020 asking others what they could do to reduce emissions resulted in a torrent of ridicule from Twitter users. A communications executive for the company wrote privately that criticism that the tweet was “gaslighting” the public was “not totally without merit” and that the tweet was “pretty tone deaf”. He added: “We are, after all, in a tweet like this implying others need to sacrifice without focusing on ourselves.”The UK-headquartered oil company, which in July announced a record $11.5bn quarterly profit, also poured scorn on climate activists, with a communications specialist at the company emailing in 2019 that he wished “bedbugs” upon the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led US climate group.Previous releases of internal documents have shown that the oil industry knew of the devastating impact of climate change but chose instead to downplay and even deny these findings publicly in order to maintain their business model.The hearings have been attacked by Republicans as a method to “wage war on America’s energy producers” and the oil companies involved have complained that the documents don’t show the full picture of their stance on the climate crisis.Exxon supports the 2015 Paris climate deal, a spokesman said, claiming that the “selective publication of dated emails, without context, is a deliberate attempt to generate a narrative that does not reflect the commitment of ExxonMobil and its employees, to address climate change and play a leading role in the transition to a net-zero future.”A Shell spokesman, meanwhile, said the committee chose to highlight only a small handful of the nearly half a million pages it provided to the body on its “extensive efforts” to take part in the energy transition.“Within that pursuit are challenging internal and external discussions that signal Shell’s intent to form partnerships and share pathways we deem critical to becoming a net-zero energy business,” he said.TopicsClimate crisisUS politicsFossil fuelsOilnewsReuse this content More