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For Immediate Release
June, 01 2018, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Ashanti B. Washington, 202-331-5660 or awashington@ucsusa.org
White House Whims Are Not Grounds for Emergency Coal, Nuke Plant Bailouts, Science Group Says
Statement by Mike Jacobs, Senior Energy Analyst, Union of Concerned Scientists
WASHINGTON
The White House is planning to issue a directive to the Department of Energy (DOE) that forces the agency to require electricity grid operators to buy power or capacity from uneconomical power plants for two years, according to news reports. President Trump's mandate would force the DOE to implement two emergency-only provisions--the Federal Power Act and the Defense Production Act--to once again attempt to bail out coal-fired and nuclear power plants.
Below is a statement by Mike Jacobs, senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"This attempt to turn an era of cheap, abundant electricity into an emergency should be seen for what it is--a scare tactic, pure and simple.
"Energy Secretary Perry is being forced to issue another unnecessary and unprecedented emergency order to favor coal and nuclear over more economic electricity suppliers, including renewables. The Federal Power Act, which ensures a reliable power supply after sudden emergencies, is not meant to insulate uneconomic power plants from market forces. The Energy Department has primarily used that authority to address major power outage events and shortages, such as the California energy crisis in 2000 and the Northeast blackout in 2003. Abusing this authority to bail out uneconomic power plants for such an extended time makes no sense, especially when most regions of the country are awash with excess electricity.
"The Energy Department has already tried to tip the scale in favor of uneconomic coal and nuclear power plants to provide a totally unnecessary 'resilience' benefit. That attempt was rightfully denied by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which determined that market rates and processes are indeed sufficient to meet national energy demand.
"The Trump administration is trying, once again, to fleece ratepayers by giving coal and nuclear power plants billions of dollars in guaranteed profits. It's absurd to force consumers to bail out money-losing plants when grid operators are having no problem keeping the lights on."
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
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Trump Calls On GOP to Kill Bill Designed to Protect Journalists
"The fact that Trump is railing against the PRESS Act tells us everything we need to know: He wants no shackles when it comes to attacking, intimidating, silencing the press," warned one legal expert.
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Journalists and press freedom advocates this week responded to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's attack on a proposed federal shield law with renewed calls for the Senate to pass the House-approved bill before he returns to office in January.
"REPUBLICANS MUST KILL THIS BILL!" Trump
said on his social media platform Wednesday, responding to a new "PBS News Hour" segment in which Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), discussed the proposal's importance.
The bipartisan Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (PRESS) Act, which passed the House in January, would bar the federal government from forcing journalists and telecommunications companies to disclose certain information, to protect sources and reporting materials, with exceptions for threats of terrorism or imminent violence.
Several states have various shield laws, but advocates have long pushed for one at the federal level. Given Trump's long-standing hostility toward the press—which he has called "the enemy of the people"—there were fresh demands for Senate action after he won the presidential election earlier this month.
Those same voices have reacted with alarm to Trump's Truth Social post calling on the GOP to block the bill.
Noting that "Democratic administrations abused their powers to spy on journalists many times, too," Trevor Timm, executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation, toldCNN that the president-elect should reconsider his position because "the PRESS Act protects conservative and independent journalists just as much as it does anyone in the mainstream press."
"The bipartisan PRESS Act will stop government overreach and protect the First Amendment once and for all," he said. Timm also highlighted that "much of the reporting Trump likes, from the Twitter files to stories poking holes in the Russiagate conspiracy, came from confidential sources," and the bill is backed by some of the incoming president's congressional allies.
For example, Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) "are champions of the PRESS Act because it would protect all journalists, including many who reach primarily conservative audiences," he said. "That's good for the public, whether they voted Republican or Democrat."
Earlier this week, before Trump weighed in, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the bill's lead sponsor in the upper chamber, publicly said that "I'll be pushing as hard as I can these next two months to pass my PRESS Act to protect journalists from government spying and surveillance. Anyone who cares about protecting journalism and a free press should contact their senators and ask them to support the bill."
Although the bill has some Republican backers in the Senate, there are also opponents, particularly on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it has stalled. As The New York Timesdetailed Wednesday:
The committee, under the leadership of its chairman, Sen. Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, has primarily been focused on approving as many of President [Joe] Biden's judicial nominees as it can before the session ends and Republicans take over leadership of the chamber next year.
The bill has also run into skepticism from several Republican senators, which makes it harder to bring it up for quick passage or to attach it to some other bill, like the Annual Defense Authorization Act.
According to congressional staff, the bill's primary adversary on the Judiciary Committee has been Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a hawkish Republican who gained public attention as an Army officer in 2006 while serving in Iraq by attacking The New York Times for its publication of an investigative article about a counterterrorism finances program. Another Republican committee member, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, is also said to have expressed some reservations.
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"No criticism. No stories of corruption. Memory hole his crimes. Nothing," stressed Kaye, a former United Nations special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. "DEFEND DEMOCRACY AND PASS THE PRESS ACT NOW!"
As reporters and media defenders urge passage of the PRESS Act, many are also sounding the alarm over H.R. 9495, a bill that passed the House on Thursday and would empower the Treasury Department to strip nonprofit status from various organizations—including news outlets like Common Dreams—by accusing them of supporting terrorism without due process.
"Today is a dark day for free speech rights and freedom altogether. Make no mistake: The real intention of H.R. 9495 is to give the executive branch extra powers to suppress dissent," Free Press Action policy counsel Jenna Ruddock said in a statement after the House vote on the "nonprofit killer" bill.
"If it's signed into law, the legislation would have a widespread chilling effect not only on nonprofit groups but on the millions of people across the United States who rely on these organizations to help them engage in the political process and access crucial services," she warned. "The bill has dangerously broad statutory language that would allow the incoming Trump administration to interpret its authority in any number of harmful ways."
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Matt Gaetz Withdraws as Trump's Attorney General Pick
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This is a developing news story... Please check back for possible updates...
Former Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz on Thursday withdrew from consideration to lead the U.S. Justice Department under the incoming Trump administration, saying in a social media post that his "confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction."
Gaetz, who lasted just a week as President-elect Donald Trump's attorney general pick, didn't mention that his nomination was facing close scrutiny due to allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old and violated federal sex trafficking laws.
Gaetz's abrupt resignation from Congress last week effectively ended a yearslong House Ethics Committee probe into the allegations. On Wednesday, GOP-controlled panel voted against releasing the findings of the investigation.
"There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I'll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as attorney general," Gaetz wrote Thursday. "I will forever be honored that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice and I'm certain he will Save America."
Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration as CNNreported that "the woman who says she had sex when she was a minor with then-Rep. Matt Gaetz told the House Ethics Committee she had two sexual encounters with him at one party in 2017."
The outlet noted that Gaetz announced his withdrawal "after being asked for comment for this story."
Additionally, The New York Timesreported Wednesday that "federal investigators have established a web of payments among Matt Gaetz and dozens of friends and associates who are said to have taken part with him in drug-fueled sex parties."
"Among those who received money from Mr. Gaetz were two women who have testified that he hired them for sex," the newspaper reported, citing a lawyer for the women. "The lawyer said payments to the women ultimately totaled around $10,000. The document obtained by the Times was assembled by federal investigators during a sex-trafficking investigation into Mr. Gaetz."
Robert Weissman, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said in a statement Thursday that "Matt Gaetz was a ridiculous, horrible, and dangerous AG selection."
"That Republican senators were not willing to rubber-stamp his nomination is a hopeful sign that a modicum of sanity persists in Washington," said Weissman. "But Gaetz was not the only Trump nomination threatening America and there's every reason to worry about who Trump will appoint in Gaetz's stead. The Senate must insist on its constitutional duty to advise and consent on Cabinet and top-level nominations and block nominations that endanger democracy, the rule of law, consumer and worker protection, environmental sustainability, and more."
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As the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan draws to a close and the second presidency of Donald Trump approaches, nearly 300 organizations from almost 40 countries are calling on the Biden administration to do everything in its power to stop the buildout of liquefied natural gas infrastructure.
The 282 groups, which included the Sunrise Movement, Oil Change International, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, the Center for Biological Diversity, and several branches of 350.org and Friends of the Earth, sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday outlining several steps he and his administration could take to use "the time it has left" to scupper the LNG expansion ahead of Trump's second term.
"As we prepare to resist Donald Trump and his promises to unleash U.S. LNG on the world, you must use the remaining days of your presidency to lock in as much climate progress as possible," they wrote.
"Now is the time to safeguard communities and the climate against the threat of growing LNG exports, which the administration can do by putting a stop any more risky buildouts from Big Oil."
In particular, the letter writers outlined four main actions Biden could take:
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- Order the DOE to reject all six permits for new LNG facilities awaiting approval, including Venture Global's "carbon bomb" Calcasieu Pass 2, which is vocally opposed by local Louisiana communities;
- Reach an agreement with Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries to end export credit agencies' backing of fossil fuels abroad; and
- Cancel all U.S. government funding of foreign LNG infrastructure and revoke the more than $5 billion earmarked by the from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and U.S. International Development Finance Corporation for an LNG project in Mozambique.
"The Biden administration has mere weeks to protect the planet from the threat of more LNG infrastructure, and the growing LNG boom under his watch is something we cannot afford," Raena Garcia, senior energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth U.S., said in a statement. "Now is the time to safeguard communities and the climate against the threat of growing LNG exports, which the administration can do by putting a stop any more risky buildouts from Big Oil."
Under Biden, the U.S. became the world's leading exporter of LNG, even as new research shows that the fuel could be as bad as coal for the climate, or even worse.
"The explosion of LNG exports from the U.S. represents an extreme grab of the limited carbon budget remaining to constrain global temperature rise," the letter writers, who come from more than 37 countries, argued. "This is especially egregious considering that the United States has already consumed far more than its fair share of the remaining carbon budget."
Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the expansion in U.S. LNG exports was partly sold as a way for it to help its allies in Europe gain energy independence from Russia and survive an immediate wartime shortage of Russian gas. However, most of the new projects pushed by the industry in both the U.S. and Europe would not begin operating until 2026 and therefore were more about locking in reliance on gas than meeting an immediate need.
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The environmental groups urged Biden to do "damage control."
"The next four years will test the limits of global resistance against fossil fuels," they concluded. "The next two months should be spent doing all that we can to protect communities in the U.S., the Global South, and throughout the world. We implore you to not act as though your climate presidency ended on November 5."
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