Energy & Environment — Interior in hot seat after court halts drilling sale

Welcome to Wednesday’s Overnight Energy & Environment, your source for the latest news focused on energy, the environment and beyond. Subscribe here: digital-stage.thehill.com/newsletter-signup. 

Today we’re looking at the Biden administration’s crossroads after a court halted drilling lease sales, the EPA asking the Postal Service to reconsider its gas-powered vehicle order and New England senators calling for further study on offshore wind.  

For The Hill, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk. Write to us with tips: rfrazin@digital-stage.thehill.com and zbudryk@digital-stage.thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @RachelFrazin and @BudrykZack. 

Let’s jump in. 

 

Interior under pressure after drilling sale nixed

The Interior Department is under pressure from both the fossil fuel industry and environmentalists over an assessment of an offshore drilling lease sale first greenlighted by the Trump administration.   

A cancellation of the offshore lease in the Gulf of Mexico by a federal judge was a win for the Biden administration, but now the decision rests with the Interior Department on how to proceed.   

The agency faces a tough decision about whether to cancel, change or maintain the sale without the ability to blame the outcome on Trump-era calculations.   

The story so far: The development is the latest in a saga of court challenges regarding this particular offshore drilling lease sale.   

The lease sale, known as Lease Sale 257, was originally approved at the end of former President Trump’s tenure. It was later carried out by the Biden administration after a June ruling against its pause on new oil and gas leasing.  

Last week, Judge Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee, invalidated the sale and the leases won during it, stating that the Trump administration’s assessment had failed to account for how the sale would change global fossil fuel demand, potentially worsening climate change. 

So where does that leave the government? In his decision, Contreras gave the Biden administration a great deal of latitude on how to approach the solution to this problem, writing that he would “vacate Lease Sale 257 and allow the agency an opportunity to remedy its … error as it so chooses in the first instance.”  

“The Court does not specify how BOEM must do so, on what timeline, or what ultimate conclusion it must reach, leaving those issues to the sound discretion of the agency,” he said, referring to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.   

Read more about the ongoing saga here. 

EPA PRESSES USPS TO HALT PURCHASE OF GAS-POWERED VEHICLES

The Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Council on Environmental Quality on Wednesday asked the U.S. Postal Service to reconsider plans to purchase a predominantly gas-powered fleet of up to 165,000 trucks. 

In letters to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy obtained by The Hill, EPA Associate Administrator for Policy Vicki Arroyo and CEQ Chair Brenda Mallory noted that the USPS fleet is one of the federal government’s biggest. 

What’s the problem? DeJoy, a Trump appointee and longtime donor to the former president, OK’d the current plan for vehicle purchasing, which only requires one-tenth of new Postal Service trucks to be electric. Oshkosh, the recipient of the USPS vehicle contract, is estimated to reduce fuel consumption only about 18 percent, burning about 110 million tons of gasoline annually. 

“The Postal Service’s proposal as currently crafted represents a crucial lost opportunity to more rapidly reduce the carbon footprint of one of the largest government fleets in the world,” Arroyo wrote. “A ten-percent commitment to clean vehicles, with virtually no fuel efficiency gains for the other 90 percent is plainly inconsistent with international, national, and many state GHG emissions reduction targets, as well as specific national policies to move with deliberate speed toward clean, zero-emitting vehicles[.]” 

Read more about the letters here. 

 

Senators ask for economic impact study 

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) led a group of all senators representing the Gulf of Maine in a letter Wednesday asking the Biden administration to thoroughly research the impact of planned offshore wind power projects on local economies. 

King was joined on the bipartisan letter by Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.). 

“We recognize the potential for our states to produce significant clean, renewable energy and to harbor a new industry and workforce through responsible development of offshore wind off our shores,” the senators wrote in a letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Director Amanda Lefton. 

“However, it is essential that BOEM do additional outreach and research to inform the agency’s planning process prior to conducting lease sales and to improve the ability to assess, predict, monitor, and manage potential environmental impacts of offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine,” they added. 

The senators noted “additional data gaps” on the projected economic impacts of the offshore development plans, calling for “regionally specific research” into those effects. 

The Biden administration has set a goal of having 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power operating by 2030, with broader plans for leases along the east and west coasts, the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of Maine. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in October that the department could hold as many as seven offshore wind lease sales by 2025. The U.S. currently has just two operating offshore wind farms that comprise 42 megawatts of wind capacity. 

Read more about the letter here 

WHAT WE’RE READING

• A winter storm is heading to Texas. Here’s what that means for the power grid. (The Texas Tribune)  
• U.S. to list Nevada flower as endangered, dealing blow to lithium mine (Reuters) 
• Europe’s plan to call natural gas ‘sustainable’ triggers backlash from climate campaigners (CNN) 
• Biden admin. bets on renewable energy to revamp Puerto Rico’s electric system (NBC) 

And finally, something offbeat but ON-beat: Is anything not an NFT these days? 

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s energy & environment page for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.