| Joe Biden wasn’t most climate activists’ first choice for the Democratic nomination for president. But as TNR’s Kate Aronoff reports today, progressives still hope to turn Biden into a serious agent of change—and they’re angling to do that by convincing him to hire the right people, should he win.
Their campaign goes beyond obvious positions at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy: Most elements of the executive branch will be implicated in a successful decarbonization plan. “One of the highest areas of importance to get climate action baked into an administration,” Julian Brave NoiseCat, the vice president of policy and strategy for the leftist think tank Data for Progress, told Aronoff, “is to make sure that as many of the economic policy positions as possible are staffed by economists who understand climate and give a fuck about it. And I think that’s going to be really hard.”
It’s been an unusually effective few weeks for highlighting what a difference serious pro-climate policy and appointments might make in weaning the United States off fossil fuels. The cost of renewable energy is falling, even as the efficacy of the technology is rising. A new study from Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy suggests that 90 percent of electricity generation in the U.S. could be powered by clean energy by 2035—not 2050, the usual target for such plans—and that the cost of that energy to consumers would be about 10 percent lower than today. “Recent U.S. precedents for natural gas and wind-solar expansion suggest that a renewable energy buildout of this magnitude is challenging but feasible.” But it all depends on politicians’ willingness to act. “The No New Policy case,” the report found, “achieves only 55% clean electricity in 2035,” simply because the development that’s possible isn’t being actively encouraged. (If you’re interested in reading more, Grist has a particularly useful summary of the implications.)
Right now, federal policy is swiftly moving in a less helpful direction. Last week’s newsletter highlighted the Trump administration’s deregulation spree under the cover of the coronavirus pandemic. Politico has recently reported that the Interior Department plans to encourage oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico—after the November election, so as not to alienate voters. And Monday, the Supreme Court dealt a serious blow to attempts to halt new pipelines, ruling that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s permit to cut across national forest land (which includes crossing the Appalachian Trail 34 times) is valid: The Forest Service does have the power to issue such permits under the Mineral Leasing Act. TNR's Nick Martin wrote about the sketchy procedures by which such projects are approved, and their ramifications:
The high court’s ruling will now trigger a case in the D.C. Circuit Court. That case looks at the “Kafkaesque” process in one judge’s words, by which federal permits are obtained by energy companies. There’s also the matter of getting approval for the pipeline to cross Blue Mountain Parkway, and approval for construction of the compressor station in Union Hill, whose environmental justice review was sharply condemned by the Fourth Circuit Court in January. The project has also been countered by HB 167, a Virginia state law passed in April that is designed to prevent energy companies from forcing customers to pay for unnecessary gas pipelines. This legislation is particularly interesting in light of recent reports that the region in Virginia that the ACP is planned for already boasts a 35 percent energy surplus, one that S&P Global predicts will grow to 60 percent within the next seven years.
The fight, in short, is far from over. But as analysis of the legal ramifications takes over, it’s crucial to remember that this is not only about setting precedent for whether the pipelines enabling global warming should be allowed to cross under national forests or heavily used trails (they shouldn’t): As the battle over the ACP continues, the nation ought to take a moment of self-reflection and ask itself why everybody with a modicum of power—judges; federal regulators; energy companies; and local, state, and federal politicians on both sides of the aisle—continues to enable a pipeline model that targets communities of color, tribal nations, and rural towns with pinpoint precision.
Read Nick’s piece in full here.
—Heather Souvaine Horn, Deputy Editor | 