Trump's Bizarre Bid To Bailout Coal And Nuclear

The Trump administration is pulling out all the stops to give a leg up to coal and nuclear, moving to take unprecedented action to intervene in the U.S. electricity markets to essentially bail out failing plants as they face an existential threat from natural gas and renewable energy.

For more than a year, the Trump administration has been trying to come up with a justification to boost coal and nuclear power plants, but several attempts have failed to pass legal muster. In 2017, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry proposed offering a subsidy of sorts to power plants that held a 90-day supply of fuel on site, a definition that only coal and nuclear could meet. FERC rejected that proposal earlier this year.

But Trump isn’t given up yet. Last week, the President basically ordered Sec. Perry to come up with some way to keep unprofitable plants open, a desperate bid that has attracted criticism from many directions.

“Impending retirements of fuel-secure power facilities are leading to a rapid depletion of a critical part of our nation’s energy mix and impacting the resilience of our power grid,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg on Friday. The President ordered Secretary Perry “to prepare immediate steps to stop the loss of these resources and looks forward to his recommendations.”

The legal logic is based on some federal laws that use national security as justification to keep the aging coal and nuclear plants open. The administration argues that because coal and nuclear can keep fuel on site, and are not dependent on pipelines, they are more secure than other forms of electricity generation.


Much more: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/Trumps-Bizarre-Bid-To-Bailout-Coal-And-Nuclear.html

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Chuck Schumer calls on EPA to lower gas prices

Sen. Chuck Schumer called on the Environmental Protection Agency on Sunday not to follow through with plans to rollback mile-per-gallon standards ​to ​lessen ​the pain at the pump​ for motorists​ as gas prices ​hit​ their highest rates in four years​​.

“If prices stay as high as they are, this summer the average motorist will pay $200 to $300 more out of their pockets than they would have otherwise,”​ the New York ​Democrat said ​during a news conference at a ​Mobil gas station in Manhattan​ where the price is ​$4.15 a gallon. “Now with the price the way it is, the better mileage the motorist gets, the better everyone does.”

The EPA announced last week that it ​has submitted plans to weaken an Obama administration rule for automakers to increase their cars’ fuel economy by 50 mpg by 2025.

The car companies lobbied Trump to lower the standard saying millions of American jobs would be at risk if the regulations remained in place.


More: https://nypost.com/2018/06/03/chuck-schumer-calls-on-epa-to-lower-gas-prices/

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EPA seeks end of California's authority over auto emissions, report says

WASHINGTON -- A draft Trump administration proposal to ease automobile efficiency standards is said to call for revoking California’s unique authority to set its own limits, a move that would set off an explosive battle with the nation’s most populous state.

In a proposal sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to rescind the waiver from federal standards that the state uses to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle tailpipes, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The revocation is contained in a joint proposal with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration aimed at rolling back a signature Obama-era environmental regulation to slash carbon dioxide emissions. The proposal will now undergo a review by the White House before it is released for public comment.

NHTSA also proposes freezing vehicle fuel economy standards at 2020 levels through 2026, according to a second person familiar with the proposal. According to an earlier draft, that would halt fuel efficiency requirements at a 37-mile-per-gallon fleet average instead of increasing to roughly 50 mpg by 2025 as envisioned under the Obama standards.

NHSTA also proposes attacking California’s authority in a manner different than the EPA, asserting that the 1975 law creating the first fuel economy standards prohibits states from enacting their own rules.


More: http://www.autonews.com/article/20180601/OEM11/180609977/trump-california-epa-revoke-emissions-regulation

Trump orders Perry to "prepare immediate steps" to keep coal, nuclear plants online

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry to "prepare immediate steps" to protect the nation's ailing coal and nuclear power sector, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday.

The statement comes as the White House is weighing an unprecedented use of national security powers to bail out industries they say are critical to keeping the nation's power grid operating. A memo this week from the Department of Energy calls for the administration to order power grid operators to buy electricity from a list of struggling coal and nuclear plants for two years "to forestall any further action towards retirement, decommissioning, or deactivation of such facilities."

"Too many of these fuel secure [coal and nuclear] plants have retired prematurely," it reads. "Although the lost megawatts of power are often replaced by new generation from natural gas and renewable energy sources, this transition comes at the expense of fuel security and resilience."

Media: Euronews
Whether the White House will go ahead with the plan laid out in the memo, which was first reported by Bloomberg News late Thursday, remains to be seen. In the statement Friday, Sanders said Trump "looks forward to receiving [Perry's] recommendations."

"Keeping America's energy grid and infrastructure strong and secure protects our national security, public safety, and economy from intentional attacks and natural disasters," the statement read.

The move drew quick condemnation from across the U.S. economy. In recent months a coalition that includes everyone from oil and gas companies to solar developers, environmentalists to major corporations like General Electric and Apple has fought back any move to bail out the coal and nuclear sectors as likely to raise electricity rates.


More: https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Energy-Dept-memo-lays-out-plan-to-keep-coal-12960174.php



Reactive domes of the South Texas Project nuclear power plant sit under an overcast sky on Friday, Dec. 6, 2013. Photo: San Antonio Express-News

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