OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Haaland reportedly recommends full restoration of monuments Trump altered | EPA to reinstate air pollution panel disbanded under Trump | State appeals court upholds approval of Minnesota pipeline

It’s Monday! Welcome to Overnight Energy, your source for the day’s energy and environment news. Please send tips and comments to Rachel Frazin at rfrazin@digital-stage.thehill.com. Follow her on Twitter: @RachelFrazin. Reach Zack Budryk at zbudryk@digital-stage.thehill.com or follow him at @BudrykZack. 

Today we’re looking at Deb Haaland’s long-awaited recommendation on two national monuments, a reversal on an EPA air pollution panel and an appeals court ruling on a controversial pipeline.

MONUMENTAL: Haaland reportedly recommends full restoration of monuments Trump altered

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland recommended fully restoring protections to three national monuments that former President Trump either shrunk or otherwise rolled back, The Washington Post reported on Monday. 

She reportedly recommended the changes to the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments in Utah, as well as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the coast of Massachusetts. 

Trump reduced the size of Bears Ears, designated by former President Obama, by about 85 percent, and Grand Staircase-Escalante, designated by former President Clinton, by nearly half. 

He also decided to allow commercial fishing in the marine monument.

Two sources told The Post of Haaland’s recommendations. They also said that the White House hasn’t made a final decision, but that President Biden favors undoing his predecessor’s actions. 

Spokespeople for the White House and the Interior Department declined The Hill’s request for comment. 

The story so far: In an executive order, Biden directed Haaland to review monument boundaries and conditions changed under Trump to decide whether “restoration of the monument boundaries and conditions that existed as of January 20, 2017, would be appropriate.”

He also directed her to submit a report detailing her findings.

Read more about the report here.

UP IN THE AIR: EPA to reinstate air pollution panel disbanded under Trump

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will reinstate a scientific group that looks at air pollution and was disbanded under the Trump administration, a spokesperson confirmed to The Hill on Monday.

EPA spokesperson Tim Carroll said in an email that the EPA’s Science Advisory Board will issue a call “in the next few weeks” for nominations for the Particulate Matter Review Panel.

Then-EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler disbanded the panel, made up of scientists who are considered experts on particulate matter, in 2018. 

It had been tasked with helping the agency to determine a safe level of particulate matter. Long-term exposure to a form of particulate matter has been linked to heart attacks, asthma attacks and premature death.

Wheeler’s move was controversial: At the time, critics blasted the move to disband the panel as anti-science. 

Monday’s news comes just a few days after the agency announced that it would review the Trump administration’s decision not to tighten air quality standards for particulate matter.

When making the decision to retain the Obama-era standard, Wheeler defended it as “protective of public health.”

But, a policy assessment from agency staff last year found that thousands of lives could be saved if the standard were tightened.

Read more about the decision here.

LAYING IT ON THE LINE: State appeals court upholds approval of Minnesota pipeline

A Minnesota appeals court on Monday sided with regulators who approved a controversial new section for an oil pipeline passing through the state.

In a 2-1 ruling, the court sided with the state Public Utilities Commission, which had given Canadian company Enbridge Energy the go-ahead on the pipeline’s Minnesota segment.

The proposed 337-mile section has drawn fierce opposition from a coalition of conservationists and tribal groups. The groups, along with the state Department of Commerce, argued in court that Enbridge had not properly demonstrated sufficient demand for oil to build that part of the pipeline. More than a thousand protesters gathered last week in Northern Minnesota to oppose the line’s construction.

What’s the logic behind the ruling?: In Monday’s ruling, Judges Lucinda Jesson and Michael Kirk wrote that both the existing, “deteriorating” Line 3 segment and the construction of a new one pose environmental risks.

“There was no option without impacts on the rights of indigenous peoples. The challenge: to alleviate those harms to the extent possible,” they wrote. “And there was no crystal ball to forecast demand for crude oil in this ever-changing environment.”

Read more about the ruling here.

SPIKING THE BALL: Biden land management pick faces GOP scrutiny over decades-old tree spiking case
President Biden’s pick to lead the country’s public lands agency is coming under Republican criticism over her involvement in a logging sabotage case decades ago. 

The criticism is over Bureau of Land Management nominee Tracy Stone-Manning’s prior admission to sending a letter to the Forest Service detailing activist tree-spiking, in which spikes are driven into trees to create potential damage to logging equipment. 

The 1989 letter in question, a copy of which was obtained by The Hill, says that trees were spiked to protect the environment and warned that people could get hurt if activity at a national forest in Idaho proceeded. 

Stone-Manning testified in 1993 that she retyped and sent the letter, which activist John Blount told her to send, for safety reasons.

“Mr. Blount … handed me a letter, and asked me to read it, which I did; and then asked me if I would mail it to the Forest Service,” she said in court.

“I took the letter and I thought about it overnight, and then I decided to mail it, but I decided to retype it first,” Stone-Manning added. 

Read more about the case here.

ON TAP TOMORROW:

• Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will appear before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee to testify on her department’s proposed budget
• The House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on supporting coal communities through the energy transition. 
• The House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on lessons from the federal response to the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack
• The House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on a series of bills aiming to get national heritage designations for certain places

FROM THE HILL’S OPINION PAGES: ‘Congress must pass $8 Billion USPS electrification proposal to jump-start US EV leadership,’ by Admiral Dennis C. Blair, US Navy (retired) and Robbie Diamond of Securing America’s Energy Future (SAFE)

 

WHAT WE’RE READING:

Collins calls EV users ‘free riders’ ahead of plan rollout, E&E News reports

EDF examines gases build-up at Chinese nuclear plant, Reuters reports

Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens launch renewable energy initiative for low-income housing, The Brooklyn Reader reports

Tackling ‘Energy Justice’ Requires Better Data. These Researchers Are On It, NPR reports

Electric trucks alone won’t deliver environmental justice, say neighbors of Chicago warehouse site, Energy News Network reports

US denied some Jones Act waivers in May, Argus Media reports

ICYMI: Stories from Monday (and the weekend)…

Crude oil hits highest price in nearly three years
Haaland recommends full restoration of monuments Trump altered: report
NATO tackling climate change for first time
EPA to reinstate air pollution panel disbanded under Trump
Biden land management pick faces GOP scrutiny over decades-old tree spiking case
State appeals court upholds approval of Minnesota pipeline
Company warns of ‘imminent radiological threat‘ after Chinese nuclear plant leak: report
Nat Geo recognizes Southern Ocean as 5th official ocean
Scientists say key Antarctic ice shelf is breaking up faster than expected

IN NON-POLICY NEWS: First-ever Pride flag is raised over Interior Department