DEMS GRILL NASA NOMINEE: Jim Bridenstine, President Trump’s nominee to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), faced a grilling by Senate Democrats Wednesday.
Dems used the confirmation hearing to tear into the Oklahoma representative, labeling him as unqualified to lead the nation’s space agency due to what they said was his climate change skepticism, opinions on homosexuality, scant experience in science and other issues.
The raucous hearing laid bare Bridenstine’s political history, including his accusations against Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) during his presidential campaign and his criticism of former President Barack Obama.
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Sen. Bill Nelson (Fla.), a former astronaut and the top Democrat on the panel, said that while nominees are often highly political, NASA is not the place for politics.
“Your record and your behavior in Congress has been divisive, and it’s been as extreme as any that we have seen in Washington. And this senator is wondering, how does that fit with a leader of a technical agency where unity is often right on the line as to what is going to happen in success or failure of a mission or a program?” Nelson asked.
“NASA represents the best of what we can do as a people. And NASA is one of the last refuges of partisan politics. And when it has got partisan in the past, we’ve gotten in trouble,” Nelson continued, referencing conclusions that political fighting contributed to the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
Some Democrats, like Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), focused their grilling of Bridenstine on climate change.
NASA is one of the lead federal agencies in observation and science of the atmosphere and the climate, and its official position is that human activity, via greenhouse gases, is the main cause of climate change.
Bridenstine told Schatz that “carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas” and “humans have contributed to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”
But Schatz said that doesn’t go nearly far enough.
“The scientific consensus is not that it’s really difficult to tell how much of climate change is attributable to human activity,” he said. “The scientific consensus is that climate change is primarily caused by human activity.”
“It’s gonna depend on a whole lot of factors, and we’re still learning more about it every day,” Bridenstine said, adding that “sun cycles and other factors” may have a big influence on the climate.
Read more here.
HOUSE PASSES WILDFIRE BILL: The House passed legislation Wednesday designed to help prevent future wildfires following a string of devastating fires in the West.
The legislation would make it easier for officials to prepare federal forests for potential fires by easing regulations governing forest management activities like controlled burns and clearing away brush that acts as wildfire fuel.
It also looks to provide more funding for wildfire relief operations by establishing a wildfire-specific account within the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Republicans say it will make it easier for local officers to prevent wildfires in the future, something that’s needed in the wake of several damaging and expensive wildfire seasons.
Opponents of the legislation criticized it for rolling back environmental regulations and Endangered Species Act protections, which they said could potentially open the door for more industrial production in forests and questioned its funding provisions.
The bill passed 232-188. It’s one of a handful of bills put forward this year to address wildfire issues.
Read more here.
SIERRA CLUB STRIKES OUT ON NATURAL GAS: A federal appeals court Wednesday rejected an environmental group’s lawsuits trying to overturn federal approval for three liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said that the Sierra Club’s challenges to export facilities in Maryland, Louisiana and Texas, fail for the same reasons the court ruled against the group in a similar case in August.
“In a very recent case, Sierra Club v. U.S. Department of Energy (Freeport), this court denied a petition by Sierra Club challenging, under the same two statutes, the Department [of Energy]’s approval of an LNG export application from a fourth facility. The court’s decision in Freeport largely governs the resolution of the instant cases,” the court’s three judges wrote in the brief judgment.
The cases decided Wednesday were part of a collection of cases the Sierra Club and other groups filed to try to stop approvals of LNG export facilities by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
The greens generally argued that the federal agencies did not sufficiently consider environmental impacts of the approvals, like increases in hydraulic fracturing and greenhouse gas emissions.
In June 2016, the D.C. Circuit Court rejected the green’s arguments regarding FERC. And in August, the same court rejected the DOE arguments.
Read more here.
EX-EPA CHIEF RIPS PRUITT: A former two-time head of the Environmental Protection Agency has taken aim at the EPA’s current chief.
William Ruckelshaus, who served under Presidents Nixon and Reagan, accused Scott Pruitt of operating “in secrecy,” and said that “by concealing his efforts, even innocent actions create an air of suspicion, making it difficult for a skeptical public to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“It’s not that Pruitt is meeting too frequently with executives and lobbyists from the industries he regulates. Every EPA administrator does that and should do that,” Ruckelshaus wrote in a Washington Post op-ed on Wednesday.
“But there should be a public record about what was discussed at the meetings. Any access to a specific interest should be matched by the same grant to all interests. Most often the public hearing process will satisfy any need for individual meetings.”
Critics have accused Pruitt of aligning too closely with polluting industries and diminishing the agency’s scientific efforts. Pruitt has defended himself, saying he’s going to “go after bad actors and go after polluters.”
ON TAP THURSDAY I: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold its first hearing on potential drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
Allowing drilling in parts of ANWR is a key goal of committee chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), but Democrats have said they will aggressively fight any attempt to drill in a region along ANWR’s North Slope.
A Senate-based budget deal requires the Energy and Natural Resources to find $1 billion in new revenue or savings over the next decade. Drilling in ANWR is likely to be the easiest way to hit that goal, setting the stage for a bitter fight over the issue.
ON TAP THURSDAY II: Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) will speak at an Axios and NBC News event on energy policy.
Rest of Thursday’s agenda …
The House Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on the 2017 hurricane season and its impact on energy infrastructure.
The House Natural Resources Committee will meet to discuss three water bills.
AROUND THE WEB:
Coal producer Armstrong Energy filed for bankruptcy Wednesday, the first coal bankruptcy of Trump’s presidency, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
Eruptions of Yellowstone’s volcano more than 600,000 years ago caused two 80-year-long winters, the Billings Gazette reports.
Losses from northern California’s recent wildfires have now topped $3 billion, the Los Angeles Times reports.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Check out Wednesday’s stories…
-House passes wildfire reform bill
-Trump to reconsider Grand Canyon uranium mining ban
-Pelosi called Dem mega-donor’s ‘Impeach Trump’ campaign a ‘distraction’: report
-Dems tear into Trump’s NASA nominee
-Court rejects greens’ plea to stop natural gas export projects
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