FIRST LOOK:

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute will hold a briefing on climate adaptation as part of its series on what Congress needs to know in the lead up to COP26. Friday, October 15 at 1:00 pm ET.

IEA Says Lots Of Progress Being Made, A Whole Lot More Progress Needed: Clean energy is growing faster than ever before, but fossil fuel demand — and climate pollution — is also growing and the world's nations must dramatically increase both their ambition and execution in order to meet the targets set out in the Paris Agreement, according to the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook released Wednesday. At the current pace, aggregate global climate pollution cuts will only reach 40% by 2050 — scientists agree net emissions must be cut by 100% by 2050 to avoid the worst and most cataclysmic impacts of climate change. (Energy Transition: TIME, Reuters, The Verge, Wall Street Journal $, Washington Examiner; Emissions: The Guardian, Axios, Thomson Reuters Foundation, The Hill, Wall Street Journal $, Axios)

Feds Plan Major Offshore Wind Lease Sales: The Interior Department will sell offshore wind leases off both coasts and the Gulf of Mexico by 2025, the Biden administration announced Wednesday. The seven lease sales are part of Biden's plan to generate 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy in the next nine years and could create up to 77,000 jobs — the U.S. currently generates just 2MW of offshore wind energy. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a division of DOI, officially approved the 800MW Vineyard Wind project earlier this year and has nine additional projects currently under review. Filling those 77,000 jobs will be a massive undertaking but Billy Vietze and his union are ready. “Everybody knows there’s a finite amount of fossil fuels, and burning it is no good for our environment,” Vietze, currently training to work on the Vineyard Wind project, told E&E news. “This is reliable, clean, renewable energy that can help support our country as we go on and provide a good future for our kids.” (AP, New York Times $, The Hill, Reuters, Reuters; Workers: E&E News and NPR)

Private Equity Buying Up The 'Dregs' Of Big Oil: Over the past decade, opaque private equity firms have quietly bought up a substantial portion of the oil and gas industry, creating the conditions for false progress, and even regression, in the transition to a clean energy economy, the New York Times reports. Since 2010, private equity has invested at least $1.1 trillion into the energy sector — double the market cap of Exxon, Chevron, and Shell combined — with just 12% going to renewable energy. The acquisitions are driven in part because "oil majors [are] feeling the heat," Alyssa Giachino of the Private Equity Stakeholder Project told the Times. Companies are eager to get oil and gas operations, and their climate pollution, off their books, while "private equity is quietly picking up the dregs, perpetuating operations of the least desirable assets.” With their hyper focus on profit and often without the considerations of reputational risk that keep traditional oil companies from polluting with abandon, private equity firms have become some of the country's biggest methane polluters — a problem only exacerbated when firms use weak disclosure requirements and complex bankruptcy and restructuring proceedings to evade cleanup requirements. “And when these largely anonymous firms collapse," Ludovic Phalippou, a financial economics professor at Oxford's Saïd Business School, noted, "you don’t even know who to be angry at, because you don’t even know who they are.” (New York Times $)

Big Oil Says It Will Testify Before Congress Without Subpoenas: The CEOs of four major oil and gas companies and two trade associations will testify, under oath, before the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment, its chair Rep. Ro Khanna told the Washington Post. Some of the firms and trade associations did not expressly confirm a representative would testify, however, and the subcommittee still holds the power to compel their testimony with subpoenas. The hearings — and the decades of disinformation they are investigating — mirror the decades of deception by the tobacco industry over the addictiveness of nicotine and the harms of smoking. (Washington Post $, E&E $, Bloomberg $, Truthout)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Pollution from North Carolina's commercial poultry farms disproportionately harms communities of color (InsideClimate News), farmers of color still awaiting promised debt relief (Modern Farmer), first Flint, now Benton Harbor. Michigan finds lead in another majority-Black city’s drinking water (Black Wall Street Times, CBS), tribal chair assails feds for poor response to missing women (E&E News)

COP26: COP26 and the Paris agreement: what to know about the UN climate change conference (Wall Street Journal $), heat rises on donor countries to meet overdue $100bn climate finance promise (Climate Home), Kerry says climate talks may miss target (AP interview), will China’s plan to build more coal plants derail COP26? (The Guardian), global energy crisis could dim climate hopes (Axios)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: EU aims for greater Arctic role and calls for oil, coal and gas to stay in the ground (The Guardian, AP, Reuters)

• RUSSIA: Russia striving to be carbon neutral no later than 2060, says Putin (Reuters), Russia shows its growing sway over global energy markets (Wall Street Journal $)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Nonprofit pursues Jair Bolsonaro at [International Criminal Court] for 'crimes against humanity' for destroying the Amazon (Democracy Now)

ACTIVISM: 155 activists arrested as climate actions continue in D.C.; Indigenous leaders March in Latin America (Democracy Now), Erin Brockovich and the people's agenda (The Hill)

IMPACTS: The climate disaster is here (The Guardian), when the place you live becomes unlivable (The Atlantic), facing floods and fires, undocumented immigrants have nowhere to turn for help (Grist), understanding poverty and children’s health before natural disasters strike (Environmental Health News)

FOSSIL VOLATILITY: The energy crunch, in six paragraphs (The Atlantic), gas reserves, subsidies and tax cuts: EU's tools to combat energy price spike (Reuters), getting off the fossil fuel roller coaster (Energy Monitor), governments should tackle oil, gas demand to avoid price shocks -CEOs (Reuters), India's October power shortage worst since March 2016 (Reuters), US households will pay more to heat their homes this winter, officials say (NPR, Wall Street Journal $), gas shortage prompts power plants to switch to oil, boosting demand (Wall Street Journal $)

MEDIA: Al Roker wins Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism (Today Show)

AGENCIES: The Biden administration proposes reversing Trump-era rules on socially conscious investing. (New York Times $, Reuters)

EPA: EPA may increase reporting requirements for carcinogen used in plastic production (The Hill, E&E News)

DOE: Ex-Clinton aide, jobs expert joins DOE renewable office (E&E $)

DOI: Interior announces 4 senior staff appointments (E&E $)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: CEQ chief touts climate goals, laments ‘ping-ponging policy’ (E&E News), U.S. Treasury to study climate change's financial impact on households, communities (Reuters)

THE HILL: Holding back the years: Dems try new tack in reconciliation (E&E News)

HOUSE: House OKs short-term debt increase, but next steps murky (E&E News)

SENATE: Sen. Elizabeth Warren Says Manchin and Sinema don’t have all the power (Late Night with Seth Meyers)

WHITE HOUSE: White House huddles with oil industry as gas prices climb (Politico Pro $, The Hill)

INFRASTRUCTURE BILL(S): 3 in 4 Democrats support larger social spending bill over scaled-back package: poll (The Hill), sources: Clean energy payment plan may morph to woo Manchin (Politico Pro $), Democrats scramble to keep immigration overhaul alive in reconciliation bill (New York Times $), Democrats still searching for compromise on critical bills (MSNBC)

POLITICS: US Chamber targets more House Democrats with ads opposing $3.5T bill (The Hill), if the Dems won’t act on climate, we’re cooked, environmentalists say (Mother Jones), Sanders blaming spending bill delay on corporate lobbying (The Hill), united against higher spending, centrist Democrats don't agree on what to cut or keep (NPR), what Is the Land Back Movement? A Call for Native Sovereignty and Reclamation (Teen Vogue)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Confirmation hearing set for DOE, FERC and parks nominees (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: Climate change: North Carolina gov signs major energy law (AP), engineering a river in New York with nature to protect against the impacts of climate change (WBUR), Fracking foe enters Pennsylvania governor race as front-runner (E&E $)

CALIFORNIA: Jane Fonda to push for end to offshore oil drilling in California (The Hill)

FERC: FERC names first-ever director of public participation office (E&E $)

HEAT: Rising temperatures will change air conditioning use—but not how you might expect (Earther)

DROUGHT: California experiences its driest summer since 1895 (The Hill), Lake Tahoe water level hits four-year low as drought pummels tourist spot (The Guardian)

FLOODING: Flooding could shut down one-quarter of America’s critical infrastructure (Grist), flooded basement? Experts say loss of wetlands could be to blame (WXYZ)

WILDFIRES: The wildfire housing crisis (Grist), wildfires threaten tax base of Calif. towns — report (E&E $)

ALISO FIRE: Alisal Fire burns more than 14,000 acres in California (ABC), shifting winds challenge crews fighting California fire (AP)

HURRICANES: With a month left, the pacific hurricane season reaches 16 storms (New York Times $), Hurricane Pamela makes landfall in Mexico, is set to bring flooding to Texas (Washington Post $, Yale Climate Connections, AP), remnants of former Hurricane Pamela head for Texas, Oklahoma (AP)

REAL ESTATE: New Urbanism sells faux sustainability as a luxury on Florida's 30A (Scalawag Magazine)

WATER: Canadian city to get 21,000 gallons of water by air amid suspected contamination crisis (Washington Post $)

RENEWABLES: Will the offshore wind industry solve pay and environmental issues? (NPR)

BATTERIES: The unstoppably good news about clean energy (Canary Media), developers increasingly pair batteries with utility-scale solar to combat declining value in crowded markets (Utility Dive)

OIL & GAS: California’s dirty little secret: oil wells in the backyard (Grist and Capital and Main), 'hydrocarbon stalwarts'? What oil execs think of net zero (E&E $), natural gas and net zero: Can they coexist? (E&E News), oil eases on profit taking, demand jitters; stays near highest in years (Reuters, Reuters), Shale oil is booming again in the Permian (Bloomberg $)

COAL: Coal-state Republicans urge advisory board renewal (E&E $), Bulgarian coal miners demand job security, fear changes (AP), energy crunch raises questions about China’s devotion to coal (E&E News)

HYDROGEN: U.S. energy department picks Shell-led consortium for hydrogen storage project (Reuters)

UTILITIES: Collectives seek to lower cost of renewable energy, offer choice at local level (The Hill)

GRID: PJM market monitor calls for penalties on generators to spur grid flexibility (Utility Dive), plug-in cars are the future. The grid isn’t ready. (Washington Post $)

EVs: U.S. questions Tesla over lack of recall after self-driving update (Axios), India's Tata Motors nabs $1 billion for EV plans (Axios), nickel shortage spells trouble for EVs — report (E&E News)

IN MEMORIAM: Internationally acclaimed climate expert Geert Jan van Oldenborgh passed away (Netherlands News Live)

AVIATION: As post-COVID travel picks up, should we cut business flights? (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

BUSINESS: Google Cloud launches partnerships on climate and sustainability (Axios)

FINANCE: Regulators must act to protect financial system from climate risk: report (The Hill)

COMMUNICATIONS: The fight to control the narrative over climate and energy security (TIME)

CAFFEINE: Wake up and smell the 'sustainable' coffee produced in Finnish lab (Reuters)

WILDLIFE: The most important global meeting you’ve probably nEVer heard of is now (New York Times $)

INTERNATIONAL: 'A drop in the bucket': China's biodiversity fund launch gets lukewarm response (Thomson Reuters Foundation), going green is Europe’s shale revolution (Wall Street Journal $), Japan eyes international carbon offsets to deliver 2030 emission cuts (Climate Home), Norway will continue to explore for oil and gas, incoming government says (Reuters), Religion can mobilize South Pacific climate action (E&E $)

• What can the royals offer COP26? A pledge to rewild their vast estates (The Guardian, Chris Packham op-ed)
• “Code Red” for climate means reducing US oil and gas production (Environmental Health News, Derrick Z. Jackson op-ed)
• Federal investments are needed to address drought in the West (The Hill, Jennifer Pitt op-ed)
• Why you should talk about climate change right now (Earther, Katharine Hayhoe commentary)
• We cannot miss this big moment for national service (The Hill, Mary Ellen Sprenkel and John Bridgeland op-ed)
• Federal investments are needed to address drought in the West (The Hill, Jennifer Pitt op-ed)

Will Big Oil’s Slippery Six CEOs Honor Their Intentions To Testify to Congress About Climate Disinfo?  

Remember in 2018, when the Washington Post hired Mark Lasswell from the Wall Street Journal to edit the opinion page? And we were concerned that maybe he’d bring climate denial along with him? Well yesterday the Washington Post published a third conservative columnists’ praise for Steven Koonin. Contributor Mich Daniels, president of Purdue University and barely not the worst recent Indiana governor, wrote that even if Koonin’s “contrarian views might be completely wrong,” the critical response to his (completely wrong) book is proof that it’s actually important. 

By that logic, Daniels should be platforming people who tout horse deworming paste as a smarter choice than vaccines, or holocaust deniers, flat earthers, and any number of other people who need to be told loudly and frequently that they are wrong. But he’s not, because it’s not really about intellectual honesty and integrity in science. If it were, Daniels would be out there defending abortion access and LGBTQ equality — but he won't because it isn't. It’s about propaganda designed to undercut the need for climate policy. 

But much like how the WSJ’s opinion page is several orders of stupid worse than its reporters, over at the news side of the Washington Post, new hire Maxine Joselow is proving her worth with a great interview with California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna confirming that at least most of the six fossil fuel executives invited to testify on climate disinformation intend to show up for the October 28th hearing! 

Last month Rep. Khanna and the Oversight Committee chair Rep Carolyn Maloney sent letters to ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell, API and Chamber of Commerce leadership, but given how we know executives prefer to send “whipping boys” to testify in their place, expectations were low that they would show up unless compelled by subpoena. 

Apparently just the threat was enough, as representatives of each group offered assurances to Joselow that they intend to show without being legally required by subpoena. While this is certainly encouraging, we couldn’t help but notice that none of them actually said they would be there, but instead offered carefully crafted replies that they intend to go. 

Joselow described BP’s statement as that its President “plans to testify,” similar to the direct quote from the Chamber of Commerce’s spokesperson that its CEO Suzanne Clark “plans to participate in the hearing.” 

API’s spokesperson reiterated that the organization “welcomes the opportunity to testify,” while Chevron said it “is committed to participating” and Joselow wrote that “Shell and Exxon confirmed via email they were cooperating with the investigation.” 

Politico’s Ben LeFebvre got similarly evasive sort-of answers from Chevron and Exxon, who didn’t commit to sending anyone but instead said they are “working with committee staff on details” (Chevron) and “continue to communicate with committee staff” (Exxon). The Oversight committee told him, though, that they “expect each of the executives we invited to appear before our Committee and testify under oath.”

Maybe it’s just because we’re jaded by things like Chevron’s empty “aspirations” to be carbon neutral, but it sure seems like each one is saying just enough to avoid getting subpoenaed right now, only to slow walk the proces and/or suddenly have a conflict when the big day comes. That way they won’t have to answer for their disinformation, and will have at least temporarily ducked a legally binding subpoena. 

After all, the whole reason they’re being called to testify in the first place is their company’s history of deception and denial. For a nice refresher, the Climate Accountability Institute has a great website putting everything about the “Slippery Six” in one place, so you can easily see what each of these players has done to spread climate disinformation. 

If even that seems like too much, there’s also a “Smoking Gun” page with all the decades-old documents laying out how they knew about their products climate impacts, and then lied about them. 

They may well be telling the truth now though, and really are going to show up to explain to Congress, and the public, about how and why they lied to us for years. 

But if we were Reps. Khanna and Maloney, we might start getting those subpoenas ready, just in case. 

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