Author: H. Sterling Burnett
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This issue:
- Some suggestions for the new mayor on climate and environmental policy
- Climate change has no significant impact on waves or storm surges
- Dutch court overturns Shell climate ruling
Some suggestions for the new town mayor on climate and environment
President-elect Donald Trump's landslide election victory and popular vote victory gave him the power to advance his own agenda, particularly the climate and energy deregulation agenda he pushed during the campaign.
In anticipation of a Trump victory, a coalition of groups — including the Heartland Institute, the E&E Law Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), Energy and Climate Truth, and the American Energy Institute — compiled a 10-page report A list of actions on climate and energy that Trump can implement from day one to bring sound science and economics back to energy and climate policy.
Bloomberg News The proposals were briefly discussed and criticized in an article titled “Climate skeptics urge Trump to advance coal, undermine federal science.” While these proposals would advance coal, they would not undermine the science; rather, they would improve it while moving the United States toward energy dominance within the bounds of the law. People should use their own judgment to determine the merits of a suggestion; therefore, I present the unfiltered list below.
1. Paris Climate Treaty and Hazard Findings. Determine Paris climate
The agreement is actually a treaty that requires Senate approval (not just an “implementation agreement”). Refers treaty to Senate for recommendation. This would legally relieve the United States from any and all obligations under the treaty until the Senate formally ratifies the treaty. Repeal the Obama/Biden EPA determination that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare (“hazard finding”).
2. Electric vehicle mandates and California exemptions. Repeal the Biden exhaust rules/electric vehicle mandate and revoke the California CO2 exemption that allows California to set exhaust emissions and de facto national gas mileage standards. Requests legislation to clarify that the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (EPCA) preempts state regulation of fuel economy, including exemptions from the Clean Air Act, and to clarify that the Clean Air Act cannot be used to regulate carbon dioxide.
3. The new green scam and grid security. Freeze all Inflation Reduction Act climate/energy spending pending review. Ask Congress to repeal all energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act through budget reconciliation. For national and economic security purposes, the grid is prohibited from relying on variable power sources such as wind and solar.
4. Oil and natural gas. Restore active federal oil and gas leases on federal lands and offshore, including the Alaska National Petroleum Refuge (NPRA) and the Alaska Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Lift a moratorium on offshore drilling in areas banned by the former president. Reversing Biden’s moratorium on federal leasing of coal mining. Simplify the permitting process for energy production. Ending Biden’s moratorium on LNG export terminals.
5. Presidential Appointment. Appoint officials from federal agencies such as the EPA, Interior Department, Energy Department, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and other key agencies to proactively approve new oil and natural gas pipelines, liquefied natural gas terminals, and other infrastructure needed to produce oil, natural gas, and coal. Simplify the licensing process. Terminate all existing federal scientific advisory committees and reorganize only those required by law. Appoint qualified and pro-energy individuals to the Board of Directors.
6. Offshore wind power. Offshore wind developers, in most cases foreign companies, threaten consumers, endangered species and iconic ocean communities that rely on fisheries to thrive. The industrialization of offshore wind development fisheries should be ended by canceling unleased wind energy areas, canceling the “30×30” commitment, implementing cumulative effects planning, and developing a balanced interagency process that is not led by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
7. Coal. Repeal all of the Biden administration’s anti-coal regulatory actions and promote coal as the preferred method of generating electricity. Begin review of relevant air quality regulations promulgated by the EPA.
8. Litigation. Withdraw and end industry lawsuits against the Biden administration’s regulatory practices. Restaff the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division with attorneys who will zealously defend the Administration’s priorities.
9. Supervision reform. Termination regulators use linear non-threshold models (LNT) for radiation and chemical risk assessments. Reinstate the EPA's ban on the use of “secret science.” Ask for legislation that would require federal courts to no longer defer to regulators on scientific matters.
10. Supervision burden. Requires passage of the REINS Act, which requires Congress to approve regulations with significant economic impact, including but not limited to regulations with an economic impact of $100 million or more.
Of course, the signatories believe Trump should also pursue many other efforts, initiatives, policies and laws on the environment, climate and climate through executive orders, agency regulatory processes and working with Congress. These efforts will promote individual freedom, economic progress, and environmental quality. However, the 10 actions above are a good start.
Source: Climate realism; junk science; Bloomberg News
Climate change has no significant impact on waves or storm surges
Research published in the journal Nature by an international team of engineers and geoscientists from universities and research institutions in Australia and the Netherlands found that despite models, climate change is not having a significant impact on wave heights or storm surges that contribute to shoreline loss. Measurement change predictions.
Scholars studied various independent global and regional sandy shoreline recession/shoreline degradation datasets as well as satellite-derived shoreline growth and decline datasets. They then compared this to data and modeled behavior of coastal and wave action. The purpose of comparing changes in the two types of data over thirty years is to determine whether trends in the former can be linked to changes in the latter. They reported:
Despite extensive research on the impact of anthropogenic climate change on global wind and wave trends, a clear link to the impact of sandy coastlines on a global scale has not yet been demonstrated. … Over the past 30-plus years, we have seen significant changes in wave and storm surges around the world. The data…do not show a clear link between wave and storm surge climate trends and sandy shoreline recession/degradation. We conclude that these long-term changes in oceanographic parameters may still be too small to have a measurable impact on shoreline decline/degradation, and that major drivers such as environmental imbalances in coastal sediment budgets may obscure any such links.
Coastal gains and losses are found to be more closely related to local short-term weather events, specific tropical cyclones, or oceanic or geological (volcanic) changes than to changes in wave heights or increases in the number or severity of storm surges, human development and activity, land reclamation , sedimentation caused by development and land subsidence.
source: Natural; no skill zone
Dutch court overturns climate verdict against Shell
A Dutch court found Shell guilty of climate pollution in 2021, in a case brought by Friends of the Earth (Netherlands). By 2030, emissions from products purchased from third parties and end users will be reduced by 45% compared to 2019 emissions.
The groundbreaking ruling was considered by many to set a precedent because it was the first time a court had held a specific oil and gas company responsible for climate change and required it to reduce a specific amount of emissions. Shell appealed the ruling, which was overturned on November 12.
Shell argued, as the company and other major oil companies have insisted when facing similar lawsuits in the United States, that the courts were not the appropriate forum to make demands for emissions cuts. Instead, they claim, such requests must come from state legislatures.
Although the Court of Appeal found that Shell did have a general obligation to reduce direct greenhouse gas emissions, it found that the company had already taken action and expected to reduce emissions by 30%. More specifically, the court found:
[A]An order to categorically reduce emissions from its products could have adverse effects globally, as it could lead to customers switching from Shell's natural gas to more polluting coal.
“In general, any reduction in greenhouse gas emissions has a positive effect on mitigating climate change,” said presiding judge Carla Giustra. “But that doesn't mean Shell's order to cut production has the same effect.”
[And the court wrote] It “cannot determine whether the Social Care Standard obligates Shell to reduce its CO2 emissions by 45% or some other percentage. There is currently insufficient consensus in the climate science community on the specific percentage reductions that individual companies like Shell should comply with.”
NPR elaborated further on the court's decision:
The court subsequently ruled that “for Shell to reduce the CO2 emissions caused by purchasers of Shell's products by a specified percentage… is not valid in this case.” Shell could fulfill this requirement by stopping trading in fuel purchased from third parties. obligation. Then other companies will take over the industry.
Analysts at Shell and Citigroup agreed on one thing: the appeals court decision was in Shell's favour.
“We are pleased with the court's ruling, which we believe is right for the global energy transition, the Netherlands and our company,” Shell Chief Executive Wael Sawan said in the company's press release.
Reuters quoted Citi analysts as saying, “[w]While success in the Court of Appeal may not mean the end of the legal process, by showing that corporate strategy is now more firmly in the hands of shareholders, we believe it will have a positive impact.
source: Reuters; UK News; NPR
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H. Sterling Burnett
Dr. H. Sterling Burnett is director of the Arthur Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy and editor-in-chief of Environment and Climate News.
Reprinted from Heartland Institute
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