RNG NEWS
Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.California bill seeks to extend cap-and-trade program
By Peter Maloney, Utility Dive.
A bill introduced in the California legislation would extend the state’s greenhouse gas emissions cap-and-trade program.
The bill would no longer limit the applicability of the GHG cap-and-trade program to an end date of Dec. 31, 2020.
- The bill, AB 151, aims to support the state law that requires GHG emissions to be cut by at least 40% below 1990’s level by 2030.
Trump to Announce Plans to Reverse Obama’s Climate Change Legacy
By Coral Davenport, The New York Times.
WASHINGTON — President Trump is poised in the coming days to announce his plans to dismantle the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s climate change legacy, while also gutting several smaller but significant policies aimed at curbing global warming.
The moves are intended to send an unmistakable signal to the nation and the world that Mr. Trump intends to follow through on his campaign vows to rip apart every element of what the president has called Mr. Obama’s “stupid” policies to address climate change. The timing and exact form of the announcement remain unsettled, however.
By Coral Davenport, The New York Times.
WASHINGTON — President Trump is poised in the coming days to announce his plans to dismantle the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s climate change legacy, while also gutting several smaller but significant policies aimed at curbing global warming.
The moves are intended to send an unmistakable signal to the nation and the world that Mr. Trump intends to follow through on his campaign vows to rip apart every element of what the president has called Mr. Obama’s “stupid” policies to address climate change. The timing and exact form of the announcement remain unsettled, however.
The executive actions will follow the White House’s release last week of a proposed budget that would eliminate climate change research and prevention programs across the federal government and slash the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by 31 percent, more than any other agency. Mr. Trump also announced last week that he had ordered Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator, to revise the agency’s stringent standards on planet-warming tailpipe pollution from vehicles, another of Mr. Obama’s key climate change policies.
While the White House is not expected to explicitly say the United States is withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, and people familiar with the White House deliberations say Mr. Trump has not decided whether to do so, the policy reversals would make it virtually impossible to meet the emissions reduction goals set by the Obama administration under the international agreement.
Idaho solid waste district approves plans for gas-to-energy facility at landfill
By Cole Rosengren, Waste Dive.
Dive Brief:
- The Southern Idaho Solid Waste District has announced plans for a $7.8 million gas-to-energy project at the Milner Butte Landfill in the city of Burley, as reported by the Times-News.
- The site receives 800 to 900 tons of waste per day from surrounding municipalities. Two 1.3 megawatt generators will be installed to start, followed by a third within the next five years, to potentially generate enough electricity for up to 5,000 homes.
- Officials estimate that the system will generate $31 million in revenue over the course of its 20-year energy purchase contract. This will leave the district with an estimated $7 million to $8 million in revenue.
Group of 23 Senators urge Trump to maintain RFS point of obligation
By Ethanol Producer Magazine.
Nearly two dozen U.S. senators have signed a letter advising President Trump not to change the federal biofuels program's longtime compliance protocol.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., today led 23 senators in a bipartisan letter urging President Trump to maintain the Renewable Fuels Standard’s point of obligation and reject proposed changes that, they say, would upend the current system.
By Ethanol Producer Magazine.
Nearly two dozen U.S. senators have signed a letter advising President Trump not to change the federal biofuels program's longtime compliance protocol.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., today led 23 senators in a bipartisan letter urging President Trump to maintain the Renewable Fuels Standard’s point of obligation and reject proposed changes that, they say, would upend the current system.
“We believe such changes are unwarranted and indefensible,” the senators wrote to Trump. “We appreciate the commitment you have made to support the RFS. We strongly urge you to steer clear of administrative changes to the policy that would undermine the program and run contrary to your goals of promoting domestic energy independence and more choices at the pump. We look forward to working with you to ensure the RFS continues to provide the stability and predictability that is creating jobs and economic growth across the country.”
The senators outlined the detrimental effects of changing the point of obligation from refiners to blenders, marketers or retailers, as one prominent refiner is suggesting. The letter said shifting the point of obligation would give refiners little incentive to produce necessary fuel blends, making it difficult for downstream entities to comply.
UPS Invests More Than $90 Million In Natural Gas Vehicles And Infrastructure
US 03/15/17
Atlanta, GA
Building Six New CNG Fueling Stations and Adding Nearly 450 Alternative Fuel Vehicles
UPS (NYSE:UPS) today announced plans to build an additional six compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling stations and add 390 new CNG tractors and terminal trucks and 50 liquefied natural gas (LNG) vehicles to its alternative fuel and advanced technology fleet. UPS further cements its leadership in the alternative fuel market while continuing to reduce its environmental footprint with this more than $90 million investment in natural gas.
Cummins updates its midrange, natural gas engine lineup
By Jason Cannon, CCJ.
Cummins announced Tuesday at the Work Truck Show in Indianapolis several improvements to its lineup of midrange engines for the 2017 model year.
Jeff Caldwell, Executive Director of North American Truck OEMs, says the company’s market-leading B6.7 is seeing an average improvement that exceeds the program’s 7 percent initial target.
By Jason Cannon, CCJ.
Cummins announced Tuesday at the Work Truck Show in Indianapolis several improvements to its lineup of midrange engines for the 2017 model year.
Jeff Caldwell, Executive Director of North American Truck OEMs, says the company’s market-leading B6.7 is seeing an average improvement that exceeds the program’s 7 percent initial target.
“Today’s 6.7 is the B Series’ most efficient engine to-date,” Caldwell says, noting the engine’s Efficiency Rating jumped 8.5 percent and Performance Rating boosted 5 percent over the EPA 2013 ISB6.7.
For some applications and duty cycles, specifically pickup and delivery, Caldwell says the Efficiency Ratings have shown up to a 13 percent fuel economy improvement over the EPA 2013 ISB6.7.
“As the program progressed,” he says, “we found opportunities to tune and optimize the engine, delivering further efficiency, and allowing us to surpass initial expectations.”
Apart from base engine fuel economy enhancements, Cummins features a Stop-Start capability with the B6.7, which Caldwell says provides additional fuel economy improvement from 3 to 15 percent. Stop-Start technology allows the engine to operate only when necessary by shutting off the engine during idle, which reduces fuel consumption and increases durability.
Trump is poised to issue a sweeping order dismantling Obama’s climate plan this week
By Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post.
President Trump could issue a sweeping executive order within days aimed at reversing his predecessor’s climate policies, a measure that energy industry officials and environmentalists have been anticipating for weeks.
The directive will instruct members of the Cabinet to rewrite regulation restricting carbon emissions from both new and existing power plants, lift a moratorium on federal coal leasing and revise the way climate change is factored into federal decision-making — all key elements of the Obama administration’s effort to address climate change. It will also reverse an executive order former president Obama issued that instructs agencies to incorporate climate change into the National Environmental Policy Act reviews it applies to federal actions, according to individuals briefed on the order.
By Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post.
President Trump could issue a sweeping executive order within days aimed at reversing his predecessor’s climate policies, a measure that energy industry officials and environmentalists have been anticipating for weeks.
The directive will instruct members of the Cabinet to rewrite regulation restricting carbon emissions from both new and existing power plants, lift a moratorium on federal coal leasing and revise the way climate change is factored into federal decision-making — all key elements of the Obama administration’s effort to address climate change. It will also reverse an executive order former president Obama issued that instructs agencies to incorporate climate change into the National Environmental Policy Act reviews it applies to federal actions, according to individuals briefed on the order.
While the exact timing of the executive order remains in flux, administration officials are under pressure to address a pending lawsuit before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That legal challenge — originally mounted by several Republican attorneys general, including Oklahoma’s Scott Pruitt, who now heads the Environmental Protection Agency — argues that the EPA exceeded its legal authority in imposing carbon emission curbs on operators of existing plants. The restrictions aim to cut carbon pollution by about one-third by 2030, compared with 2005 levels.
Pruitt is no longer a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
The directive would instruct Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ask the D.C. Circuit to hold the lawsuit in abeyance while the EPA revisited the rules it wrote during President Barack Obama’s tenure. If the court agreed to that request, the agency would have to establish an administrative record on why it had decided to pursue a different path.
White House cuts to EPA may be deeper than first reported
By Devin Henry, The Hill.
The Trump administration is weighing even deeper cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency than previous versions of their budget outline suggested, according to a new report.
The EPA and agency chief Scott Pruitt did not fight the 25 percent cut the White House proposed in its first budget draft last month, Axios reportedTuesday, and officials are now considering cutting the agency’s $8.1 billion budget even further.
In talks with the administration, Pruitt only fought proposed cuts to the agency’s clean-up budget, something he told a group of mayors earlier this month he would do.
Vox: What Scott Pruitt’s recent climate denial means for the EPA
By Brad Plumer, Vox.
Over the past eight years, the Environmental Protection Agency has become the main US agency in charge of tackling climate change, issuing a slew of regulations to curtail emissions of carbon dioxide — a key greenhouse gas heating up the planet.
So it’s a big deal that Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s new EPA head, now openly dismisses basic climate science. On CNBC last week, Pruitt said: "I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that [carbon dioxide is] a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.” (This is wrong: there’s ampleevidence that human CO2 emissions are a primary contributor.)
Pruitt’s comments, while stunning, weren’t totally unexpected. He’s been hinting for a while now that he doesn’t think global warming is a problem and plans to roll back as many Obama-era EPA climate policies as possible. But in light of this CNBC interview, it’s worth rehashing what he can — and can’t — do to put these views into practice:
DC Circuit Court Pauses EPA 2017 Biofuel Standards Challenge
By Kat Sieniuc Law360.
The D.C. Circuit on Friday put on hold the American Petroleum Institute’s challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2017 renewable fuel volume requirements, saying the panel will first rule on another challenge to the agency’s 2016 biofuel standards.
The API, a longtime foe of the EPA’s renewable fuels program, challenged the agency's 2017 requirements under the Renewable Fuel Standard program in February, saying increasing the volume of higher-ethanol fuel blends "is irresponsible" and could force consumers to pay for unnecessary repairs to vehicles that are not designed to handle such fuel mixes.
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