Climate and Environment

All that this administration has done to make renewables easier and cheaper to build in this country is threatened by the administration’s simultaneous willingness to let U.S. fossil fuel companies continue to extract the massive reserves of oil and gas still in the ground, and, increasingly, to export it abroad. We share one global atmosphere. There is no decarbonizing America—no avoiding climate change reshaping the possibilities for life on this planet—without keeping our massive oil and gas reserves in the ground. 

In response to the Energy Department’s announcement Friday that it has selected seven proposed Hydrogen Hubs to allow to enter negotiations for $7 billion in federal funding, the Revolving Door Project released the following statement.

On Thursday the 19th, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is expected to vote on whether to approve Calcasieu Pass 2, a massive long-term natural gas liquefaction and export facility that intends to export 20 million metric tons of planet-warming methane gas a year. Dodging its responsibility so far to consider the full range of consequences of its infrastructure permitting decisions, FERC looks set to greenlight this monstrosity. As this newsletter will explore, not only are the global climate consequences of new gas export infrastructure enormous, but the immediate impacts are keenly felt by the local community inundated with pollution from the original Calcasieu Pass facility.

The underfunded agency overseeing tens of thousands of miles of dangerous pipelines has not had an official leadership for years.

Corporate greed and emaciated federal regulatory capacity means people are needlessly suffering physically, and sometimes even dying. That’s the upshot of two recent reports from the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). These reports illustrate the concerning state of environmental regulation and enforcement in regards to water quality and refinery emissions. 

On Sunday, an estimated 75,000 people marched in Manhattan, demanding that President Biden end the era of fossil fuels and take immediate action to address climate change.

Activists are pushing Fed vice chair Michael Barr and his deputy Kevin Stiroh to force the financial sector to take climate change seriously.

The White House announced late last week that the Environmental Protection Agency is launching epa.gov/cancer as part of the Biden administration’s Cancer Moonshot efforts, and will share new information about the EPA’s role in leveraging its existing authorities to “accelerate the rate of progress to prevent cancer, including phase-outs of carcinogens, regulatory actions to protect children, workers and overburdened communities, and enforcement actions to ensure pollution is curbed.” 

The Revolving Door Project released a new Industry Agenda report today examining the executive branch influence agenda of the rapidly growing “clean” hydrogen industry, which is poised to receive tens of billions of dollars under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. 

The roughly 35,800 employees of the federal Forest Service, housed within the Department of Agriculture, are responsible for managing 193,000,000 acres of national forests. The mission of the Forest Service is to “sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.” Yet time and time again, the Forest Service has betrayed this mission in order to service the profit-driven ends of the timber industry, prioritizing commercial timber extraction over recreation and conservation, and ignoring the essential role intact forests play in mitigating our ongoing biodiversity and climate crises. 

At the conclusion of the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, Revolving Door Project Senior Researcher Kenny Stancil and Research Assistant Henry Burke released the following statement:

In advance of his Jackson Hole speech, the Fed chair has neglected his role of ensuring the safety and soundness of banks with substantial fossil fuel assets.