Overnight Energy: EPA official steps down after indictment on ethics charges | Sanders to hold town hall on climate | Zinke slams ‘environmental radicals’ for fires
INDICTED EPA OFFICIAL STEPS DOWN: A top Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official is stepping down, less than a week after he was indicted in Alabama on ethics charges.
Onis “Trey” Glenn III, who was the regional administrator for the Southeast region, based in Atlanta, announced his resignation in a Sunday letter to Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler.
“As you know, unfounded charges have been levied against me that I must and will fight,” Glenn wrote in the letter, first reported by AL.com.
{mosads}”Stepping down now, I hope removes any distraction from you and all the great people who work at EPA as you carry out the agency’s mission,” Glenn said, adding that he intended “to focus on my family, fight these unfounded accusations and ultimately clear my name.”
Ryan Jackson, chief of staff to Wheeler, told employees in the Region 4 office Monday that the EPA head accepted Glenn’s resignation and thanked him, in an email obtained by The Hill.
Glenn was tapped for the job, a political position, last year by then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
The Alabama Ethics Commission announced last week that a grand jury in Jefferson County, which includes Birmingham, had indicted Glenn. He is accused of violating state laws against using his office for personal gain and soliciting or receiving a “thing of value” from a principal or lobbyist.
The alleged incidents happened before Glenn worked at the EPA. He and Scott Phillips consulted for law firm Balch & Bingham between 2014 and 2017 to help fight a potential EPA-directed cleanup of two contaminated sites on behalf of Drummond Co., which could have been liable for the cleanups.
His replacement: Jackson told EPA employees that Mary Walker, the deputy regional administrator in the Atlanta office, will be the acting regional chief. Walker previously led the water division in that office and was assistant director at the Georgia Environmental Protection Division.
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SANDERS PLANS CLIMATE TOWN HALL: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is planning to host a town hall next month on climate change, with the goal of pushing aggressive policies to fight global warming.
Sanders announced the event Monday. He’s expecting to feature numerous experts and activists at the event, such as 350.org founder Bill McKibben, actress Shailene Woodley, Democratic strategist Van Jones and Earth Guardians Youth Director Xiuhtezcatl Martinez.
The event will be coming less than a month after Election Day, which saw the election of dozens of new House Democrats. Many of the incoming Democrats, such as Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), are pushing progressive climate policies like transitioning the country completely to renewable energy and are clashing with current Democratic lawmakers over the policies.
“The reason we are having this town hall is pretty simple. Unless we take bold and drastic action to address climate change and transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy, I fear very much that the world we leave for our kids and grandkids will be in much worse shape than the world we live in today,” Sanders said in a statement announcing the town hall.
“Let’s go forward to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels, create millions of jobs in the process and leave behind a planet that is livable for our children and grandchildren.”
The event is slated for the evening of Dec. 3. It will take place in Washington, D.C., and be webcast on multiple platforms.
ZINKE POINTS FINGER AT ‘ENVIRONMENTAL RADICALS’ OVER FIRES: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke blamed “environmental radicals” for the California wildfires that have killed at least 77 people, saying they stop forest management practices that could have prevented the fires.
Days after touring the damage of the Camp Fire, the deadliest in California’s history, Zinke went on Breitbart News Sunday and declared “it’s not the time for finger-pointing” on the causes of the fires.
But minutes later, he put the blame squarely on environmentalists, contending that they stood in the way of clearing brush, doing prescribed burns and other actions.
“I will lay this on the foot of those environmental radicals that have prevented us from managing the forests for years. And you know what? This is on them,” Zinke said.
“We have dead and dying timber. We can manage it using best science, best practices,” he continued. “But to let this devastation go on year after year after year is unacceptable, it’s not going to happen. The president is absolutely engaged.”
Zinke on ethics allegations against him: He also defended himself over multiple ethics controversies. “The left is so angry,” Zinke said. “The allegations against me are outrageous. They’re false. Everyone knows they’re false. And they get more outrageous as you get close to October. I follow all rules, regulations, procedures, and most importantly law. I love my job.”
DEMS FIGHT TRUMP’S MONUMENT ROLLBACKS IN COURT: More than 100 congressional Democrats signed onto a court brief Monday opposing Trump’s decisions last year to shrink two national monuments in southern Utah.
The lawmakers argued that Congress gave the president the power to establish monuments in the Antiquities Act of 1906, but reserved the right to abolish or shrink monuments. Trump’s actions shrinking the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, therefore, encroach on Congress’s authority, they said.
“By enabling presidents to act quickly to protect such landmarks, the Act ensured that cherished places and objects would not be destroyed before Congress had a chance to decide their fate — thus maintaining Congress’s prerogatives under the Property Clause,” the lawmakers said in the brief, referring to the Constitutional provision giving Congress power over federal property.
“Congress did not, however, give presidents the authority to diminish or abolish existing national monuments, which would have ill-served the preservationist goals of the Antiquities Act and Congress’s own constitutional prerogatives. The Act’s text, history, and purpose make this clear.”
In the consolidated District Court for the District of Columbia cases, The Wilderness Society v. Trump and Grand Staircase Escalante Partners v. Trump, conservation and indigenous groups are seeking to have the monument rollbacks reversed.
OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY:
Saudi Aramco has abandoned its plans for a $70 billion bond sale, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Scientists in Israel are researching a potential way to turn turkey feces into a renewable energy source, NPR reports.
The National Park Service, which owns the Paramount Ranch, said it will take about two years to rebuild the famous filming location after it was destroyed by a wildfire, the Hollywood Report reports.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Check out stories from Monday and the weekend …
– Zinke blames ‘environmental radicals’ for deadly California fires
– Trump EPA official resigns after indictment on ethics charges
– Sanders to host town hall on climate change
– Official: UAE complying with Iran sanctions ‘as it is published by the United States’
– California air pollution due to wildfires exceeded world health standards by 60 times
– John Lewis joins Ocasio-Cortez on climate change push
– Dolphin shot to death on California beach
– Trump heads to California to meet first responders amid deadly wildfires
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