Overnight Energy & Environment — Presented by ExxonMobil — Biden reverses Trump on owl habitats

by Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk - 11/09/21 7:41 PM ET

Welcome to Tuesday’s Overnight Energy & Environment, your source for the latest news focused on energy, the environment and beyond. Subscribe here: digital-staging.thehill.com/signup.

Today we’re looking at the Biden administration accusing its predecessor of a “faulty” scientific interpretation on owl habitat, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) Glasgow delegation and the latest on the Line 5 pipeline.

For The Hill, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk. Write to us with tips: rfrazin@digital-staging.thehill.com and zbudryk@digital-staging.thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @RachelFrazin and @BudrykZack.

Let’s jump in.

Biden restores owl habitat protections

The Biden administration is restoring habitat protections for the northern spotted owl — saying that its predecessor relied on a “faulty” interpretation of science to remove such protections.

The administration on Tuesday withdrew a Trump-era determination that would have excluded more than 3 million acres of protected habitat for the owl.

The Trump administration decision came in the final days of his presidency and would have opened up habitat for timber industry use.

So what’s new? The Biden administration pulled that rule and argued that its predecessor relied in part on a “faulty interpretation of the science.”

Specifically, it said that the agency’s former director “overestimated” the likelihood that the owl population would persist into the foreseeable future if large swaths of its habitat were opened up to the timber industry.

Trump-era officials push back: “As a lawyer and biologist, I use sound science and operate within the rule of law for all my decisions. It is easy for biased individuals to say negative things about science when they do not get the outcome they want,” Aurelia Skipwith, who led the FWS at the time, told The Hill in an email.

Meanwhile, former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt argued that his department’s action was legal, pointing to part of the Endangered Species Act that allows for some discretion unless failure to protect an area will result in species extinction.

“Any future Secretary can weigh the benefit factors differently, but they can not change the law or the legal standard. The current exclusion is consistent with the existing law,” he said in an email.

Read more about the reversal here.

A MESSAGE FROM EXXONMOBIL

Here’s how we’re supporting the Global Methane Pledge

ExxonMobil supports reducing methane emissions by 30% by the year 2030, in line with the Global Methane Pledge. We are working to reduce methane emissions, and encourage others in and out of our industry to join. Learn more.

Pelosi touts spending bill in Glasgow

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) touted Democrats’ $1.75 trillion climate and social spending bill, which Democrats hope to pass through the chamber next week, in remarks Tuesday at the U.N.’s COP26 climate conference in Glasgow.

Pelosi called the measure the “most ambitious and consequential climate and clean energy legislation of all time.”

The Speaker is just the latest U.S. official to highlight the measure, following President Biden last week and former President Obama earlier this week. Democrats seek to send the signal on the international stage that the U.S. is ready to take a leadership role in the world’s battle against climate change. They see the pending House bill as a key pillar in that argument.

“Our legislation is far reaching, ensuring that [the] future economy is greener and cleaner,” Pelosi added during a press conference in Glasgow.

But, this thing still needs to pass… Pelosi also reaffirmed that the chamber would vote next week on the legislation.

“That is our plan — to pass the bill the week of November 15, as is indicated in our statements that were made at the time of passing the infrastructure bill,” the speaker said.

She’s not the only one abroad. She was joined by a delegation of more than 20 Democrats, including chairs of key committees and progressive big name Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

…and Ocasio-Cortez also spoke during a different summit event. She praised environmental activists and said their efforts had reframed climate discussions at the policy level.

The New York congresswoman echoed other U.S. officials at the summit, saying that America “is back” when it comes to international climate policy. However, she clarified, “when we say the United States is back, it’s not just that we’re back in the way that the U.S. was pursuing climate policy before … we’re not just back, we’re different.”

She said that the influence of grassroots activism throughout the Trump presidency helped to create “an alternative path, an alternative framework for how we can pursue climate justice.”

That approach, she said, helped to create ambitions beyond the “pure market-based solutions” of previous years, such as cap-and-trade legislation and carbon taxes.

The introduction of policies such as the Green New Deal to the conversation, she said, fed an understanding that “we can’t actually just pursue decarbonization … it has to center a benefit for the working class, for the vulnerable, for frontline communities, people of color, women, underserved communities.”

BIDEN ADMIN NOT CONSIDERING PIPELINE SHUTDOWN

The White House on Tuesday clarified that the Biden administration is not considering a shutdown of the Line 5 pipeline in Michigan despite a push from the state to do so.

Asked Monday about the pipeline, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the administration was studying the impact of shutting down the pipeline, but during her Tuesday comments, she appeared to walk back her assertion.

Jean-Pierre noted that amid a dispute with the state over the pipeline, Canada invoked a treaty involving the U.S. government. But she said that these negotiations should not be viewed as an attempt to stop the vessel’s operations.

“These negotiations and discussions between the two countries shouldn’t be viewed as anything more than that — and certainly not an indicator that the U.S. government is considering shutdown. That is something that we’re not going to do,” she said.

Jean-Pierre noted that part of the line could be replaced and that the U.S. Army Corps will study that potential replacement.

A MESSAGE FROM EXXONMOBIL

HATCH ACT FINDING

A government watchdog agency determined that 13 senior Trump administration officials, including a former energy secretary, violated federal law by campaigning for former President Trump in the lead up to the 2020 election.

In a report published Tuesday, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) found numerous officials in the past administration broke the law with their political activities prior to the election.

“Taken together, the report concludes that the violations demonstrate both a willingness by some in the Trump administration to leverage the power of the executive branch to promote President Trump’s reelection and the limits of OSC’s enforcement power,” the OSC said in a release sharing the report.

One of the 13 officials was then-Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette. The report faulted Brouillette for an appearance on “The Brian Kilmeade Show,” where he discussed then-candidate Biden’s comments on energy.

The report noted that Brouillette told the agency that during the appearance he “intentionally deflected [his] response to avoid commenting on the election or specific comments made by candidates.”

But the OSC said he didn’t reconcile that with the fact that he called Biden’s comments “an enormous deal” and said that “no one should buy” that Biden would “leave fossil fuels alone” if he were to win.

WHAT WE’RE READING

Woodsmoke clouds Nigeria’s carbon reduction plans, Reuters reports
Few willing to change lifestyle to save the planet, climate survey finds, The Guardian reports
Renewable energy in the U.S. nearly quadrupled in the past decade, report finds, The Washington Post reports
In new climate order, Inslee says Washington State vehicles to plug in, the Northwest News Network reports
Guyana is a poor country that was a green champion. Then Exxon discovered oil, NPR reports

ICYMI

Biden administration draft drops uranium from critical minerals list, reversing Trump
Analyses find Paris target out of reach under current circumstances
DOJ investigating Alabama over wastewater in majority-Black county
NOAA moves toward designating new national marine sanctuary off central California
Climate advocates skeptical of bipartisan infrastructure bill amid Biden victory lap
Meat industry groups pledge to meet Paris Agreement emissions targets by 2030

And finally, something offbeat and off-beat: Trash of the titans

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s energy & environment page for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.{mosads}

Tags Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Barack Obama Donald Trump Joe Biden Karine Jean-Pierre Nancy Pelosi