FIRST LOOK:

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute will hold a briefing on the ambition and opportunity in America’s new climate commitments TODAY at 1:00 p.m. ET. 

Gas Stations Dry As Pipeline Shutdown Drives Panic, Chaos: Long lines of drivers waited at gas stations across the South yesterday — except for the stations that had already run out of gas — as the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline caused panic buying and chaos. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the "crunch" in the Southeast will take several days to alleviate and that Pipeline Officials told her they could make a decision on a "full restart" as soon as Wednesday evening. The pipeline will be "substantially" back online by the weekend, Granholm said. The administration has issued dozens of waivers of environmental and labor regulations, including rules requiring cleaner gasoline to be sold in urban areas. The vulnerability of pipelines to cyberattack is not new nor unexpected — FERC commissioners wrote an op-ed in 2018 about essentially this very scenario. Though this gasoline pipeline disruption has not led to the deadly outcomes of the natural gas system failures that plunged much of Texas into darkness and caused disruption across the Great Plains in February, the current crisis illustrates the chaos that can be caused by failures of fossil fuel infrastructure. Yet, even in the midst of a crisis, Colonial Pipeline didn't even notify the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity division after the attack and still had not shared important technical information with the agency as of Tuesday, Politico Pro reported. Despite the disruption and panic, the American Petroleum Institute told reporters Tuesday new cybersecurity mandates suggested by Republican lawmakers and federal energy regulators were premature. (Fuel shortages: Washington Post $, Bloomberg $, E&E $, AP, New York Times $, The Hill, Washington Examiner, The Hill; Security: Earther, The Hill, Grist, Politico Pro $, Utility Dive, Axios, Washington Post $, The Hill; Administration response: Politico, The Hill, Politico, The Hill, Politico Pro $, Politico Pro $; API response: Washington Examiner)

IEA Says 'Unprecedented' Renewables Boom Will Continue But Needs To Be Faster: Global renewable energy capacity jumped 45% last year, the biggest annual increase since 1999, and will need to accelerate in order to meet net zero targets, a new report from the International Energy Agency says. The "unprecedented boom" the IEA predicts will become a "new normal" was driven largely by a 90% increase in global wind energy capacity. “Renewables currently are expanding rapidly, but it should be faster,” said Heymi Bahar, a renewable energy analyst at the IEA. “If your target is net-zero, it has to be faster.” While the IEA expects renewables growth to continue at 2020's pace the sector will need to expand even faster in order to both replace coal and gas and meet new power demand driven by the electrification of transportation and industry. (Bloomberg $, NPR, Wall Street Journal $, Reuters, The Guardian, The Verge, CNBC, Axios, Washington Examiner)

Proximity To Fracking Increases Heart Attack Risks, Study Shows: Among the known health risks caused by living near fracking wells, scientists are adding heart attacks to the list. A new study published in the Journal of Environmental Research, finds middle-aged men living near fracking operations in Pennsylvania were more than 5% more likely to die of a heart attack than their counterparts where fracking is banned. Researchers looked at Pennsylvania fracking counties and compared them to demographically similar counties in New York, which has banned fracking. They also found heart attack hospitalization rates were higher in Pennsylvania compared to New York. The study controlled for counties' coal production — which also increases heart attack risk — and for health insurance access, which is often poor in rural communities where fracking is concentrated. (Environmental Health News)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: This Chicago scrapyard is testing Michael Regan on environmental justice (Grist)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) SEXISM: Lawyer faults 'men's-club' dynamic in Mass. v. EPA account (E&E $) 

CORONAVIRUS: Pandemic derails Caribbean islands' bid for greener, cheaper energy (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

DISINFORMATION: Utility-funded propaganda book for kids calls natural gas an ‘invisible friend’ (Earther)

FO$$IL FUEL$: What do voting restrictions and anti-protest laws have in common? (Grist)

VINEYARD WIND: US approves its first big offshore wind farm, near Martha’s Vineyard – it’s a breakthrough for the industry (The Conversation, AP, Washington Post $, New York Times $, Earther, Business Insider, Axios, The Guardian, Reuters, The Gazette, Ars Technica, E&E $, The Hill, Providence Journal, Politico Pro $, HuffPost), E&E $)

MEDIA: The problem of ‘casting calls’ for sources (Columbia Journalism Review)

HEALTH: How hospitals can help patients and the planet (New York Times $)

EPA: Agency flooded with applicants for gutted air quality panel (E&E $), EPA sets grants to restore ‘brownfields’ at blighted sites (AP), EPA to award $9.6 million in grants for beach water monitoring, notifications (The Hill), the EPA proposes a ban on HFC-23, the most potent greenhouse gas among hydrofluorocarbons, by October 2022 (InsideClimate News)

DOE: Granholm prepares to unload electric bus company stock (E&E $)

DOI: Deb Haaland on climate, energy and a new effort to address violence against Native Americans (The 19th* News, Deb Haaland interview), Biden to restart environmental review of bird habitat Trump opened for mining (The Hill)

THE HILL: 'Hidden tax': economic upheaval tangles infrastructure talks (E&E $), lawmakers grill cyber officials over pipeline hack (E&E $), lawmakers call for expanded DOE pipeline oversight (E&E $)

HOUSE: Bipartisan duo reintroduces carbon tax legislation (E&E $), Boebert leads GOP opposition to Biden conservation plan (E&E $), How a pro-coal Republican became a climate deal-maker (E&E $)

SENATE: Top Republican blocks funding for Kerry's office (E&E $)

AMERICAN JOBS PLAN: Reaching back to the New Deal, Biden proposes a Civilian Climate Corps (NPR)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Biden's EPA water pick promises to shed oil and gas stocks (E&E $), Biden’s biggest remaining personnel decision [Fed chair] meets heat from the left (Politico), picks for U.S. development bank have energy ties (E&E $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Why the US should push renewables, not gas, in Europe (Energy Monitor)

CITIES AND STATES: Facing rising temperatures, Miami appoints chief heat officer (Washington Post $), Chicago explores alternatives to ComEd for electricity in support of equitable climate goals (Utility Dive), GOP lawmaker withdraws fossil fuel 'sanctuary' bill (E&E $), [Ohio] House passes bill blocking cities from banning natural gas (Ohio Capital Journal), Louisiana's governor wants the oil and gas state to go carbon neutral (NPR), cities aren’t making climate investments where they matter most (Bloomberg $), how New York could build publicly owned electricity without taking over dirty plants (HuffPost)

CALIFORNIA: Crisis mode: Calif. confronts drought, infrastructure mess (E&E $)

IMPACTS: The entire Bay Area is in extreme drought. Here's what your local water supplier is doing (KQED), there’s a new definition of ‘normal’ for weather (New York Times $), what you may not know about poison ivy (New York Times $)

HURRICANES: Hurricane that hit Louisiana in 2020 was Category 3, not 2 (AP)

SCIENCE: Archaeologists are making a push to improve climate modeling (Earther), satellites are ushering in a new era of environmental accountability (Axios)

HOUSING: Study warns housing trends could cancel out CO2 cuts (E&E $)

BALANCING ACTS: For clean energy, buy American or buy it quick and cheap? (New York Times $)

REFORESTATION: Forests as big as France have grown back since 2000, research shows (Thomson Reuters Foundation, The Guardian)

EFFICIENCY: Wallflowers of the green energy boom (Wall Street Journal $)

ELECTRIFICATION: The 'building electrification' movement is coming for your Colorado home. Here’s what you need to know before giving up gas. (The Colorado Sun)

OIL & GAS: New project tracks natural gas flaring using space data (Axios), carbon trading at top oil trader Vitol jumped 61% last year (E&E $), Qatar pivots to LNG-hungry China in strategy shift (Reuters), what the ransomware attack on colonial pipeline means for the [oil and gas] industry (NPR)

PIPELINES: Whitmer threatens profit seizure if pipeline keeps operating (AP)

COAL: Europe's record-high carbon price drives down coal use (E&E $), Indonesian utility pledges to stop building coal plants beyond existing pipeline (Climate Home)

HYDROGEN: Suncor to develop hydrogen project in Alberta amid renewables push (Reuters)

UTILITIES: Duke 'optimistic' on seeing broad North Carolina energy bill in 2021 amid Democratic, NGO exclusions (Utility Dive)

EVs: Biden heading to Michigan to preview Ford's electric truck (E&E $), Minnesota makes a play to get more electric vehicles on the road (Axios), Nikola scales production, fueling stations as it books deal for 100 EVs (Utility Dive), rising electricity costs threaten EVs, clean energy — report (E&E $), why electric cars are cheaper if you’re rich (Grist), bottom drops out of the red-hot market for electric vehicle start-ups (New York Times $)

ART: In New York, artist Maya Lin's 'Ghost Forest' warns on rising sea water (Reuters)

ACTIVISM: UK climate activist arrested after attacks on HSBC and Barclays (Reuters)

AGRICULTURE: Study: Farm emissions cause over 17,000 deaths annually (E&E $)

BUSINESS: Amazon raises $1 billion sustainable bond for climate, social causes (Reuters)

CARBON REMOVAL: The climate clock that starts right now (The Atlantic)

CARBON PRICING: Kenya plans to set up emissions trading system (Reuters)

GEOENGINEERING: NOAA studies plan B for climate. The results are iffy (E&E $)

FINANCE: U.S. regulators should demand banks to hold more cash for climate risks -think tank (Reuters)

ACADEMIA: Northwestern taps [Hari Osofsky as] new law dean after summer shakeup (Reuters)

INTERNATIONAL: French Senate seeks to weaken constitutional pledge on climate change (Reuters), new German climate targets due on Wednesday (Reuters), Germany to consider spending more to meet climate goal (AP)

• The real infrastructure problem (Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board $)
• Green future needs to be built with union jobs and prevailing wage (The Hill, James Callahan op-ed)
• How to make the climate emergency clear from Biden's bully pulpit (The Hill, Katharine Hayhoe and David Fenton op-ed)
• Forest service is flunking Biden's science test (The Hill, Ted Zukoski op-ed)

Big Oil Pretends To Embrace Climate Action Nationally, While Fighting Against Climate Policies Locally

This week, fossil fuel giant BP announced that while it left some trade groups last year, supposedly over their climate denial, it’s still going to maintain membership in the American Petroleum Institute, National Association of Manufacturers, US Chamber of Commerce and others. Apparently those groups' lip-service embrace of a price on carbon is enough to set them apart from some of the groups BP left. Given the fact that API, NAM and the Chamber are three of the historically biggest blockers of climate action, you’d have to be pretty gullible to believe these tigers changed their stripes. 

Even less so when you look at what’s been happening at the state level. Because while Big Oil and its beneficiaries are talking about being open to the possibility of negotiating over a potential price on carbon (that would be low enough that they can pay, but high enough that coal can’t), at the local level they’re fighting tooth and nail against policies that would actually reduce emissions. 

In Wyoming, the relationship between coal and the GOP remains as strong as ever though, with Republicans in the state abandoning the pretense the party once had that you shouldn’t pick winners and losers, or just go around suing people. Instead, they're doing both those things, using the state’s precious limited budget resources to sue other states that refuse to buy its dirty coal. 

Meanwhile — in response to the spate of successful local bills prohibiting  natural gas lines in new buildings for climate reasons and, just as importantly and more immediately, because burning methane gas indoors is a health threat akin to burning anything else — Indiana and Ohio are usurping local rights by invoking state authority to try and ban local bans on gas while repeating industry talking points about it being “affordable, reliable, and environmentally friendly.” (Given the Colonial shutdown this week and the Texas blackout earlier this year, as you read this, the industry is no doubt frantically testing a new word besides “reliable” to use in its promo materials that have been so eagerly adopted by the GOP...) 

But Indiana and Ohio’s very ALEC-esque policies are far from the only examples. There are something like 26 states, over half in the nation, that have already enacted or are currently considering these obviously industry-driven efforts, using front groups to protect polluters from public pressure. 

The rapidly solidifying dynamic of the industry fighting Biden’s national agenda through the states is perhaps most clear in Louisiana, where the Democratic governor talks out of both sides of his mouth, with one promising climate action in the future, in line with Biden’s climate goals, then out the other side comes uncut petroleum propaganda opposing Biden’s climate policies in the present. A state Republican also (briefly) introduced a bill declaring it a “fossil fuel sanctuary state,” prohibiting state employees from following federal laws that might be bad for the oil industry, usurping federal authority for the states. 

Fortunately it was dead on arrival, “because of legality concerns,” Sara Sneath reported for Floodlight, though it’s “among several bills introduced at the Louisiana legislature this session that would likely reduce regulation of oil and gas companies in the state.” 

Oh and it turns out the bill’s sponsor, Danny McCormick, runs an oil company and, before getting elected, was a member of the Louisiana oil and gas lobby group.

Which, in a way, makes sense. As the industry pursues ever-more-sophisticated campaigns to influence policy-makers, and increasingly embarrassing investigative stories reveal the depths of their old school propaganda and social media influence-peddling, perhaps they’ve found a shortcut. 

Why bother setting up front groups to lobby Republicans to pass laws to protect your polluting industry’s profits, when you can just get yourself elected as one, and write them yourself?

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