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Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! In today’s issue, we have an exclusive White House announcement for more than 650 hospitals that have agreed to halve their emissions by 2030. More on that below. But first:
Environmental attorneys will frantically push the refresh button at 10 a.m. today
Sarah Colangelo felt her stomach tighten and reached for a bottle of Tums, just as she had done at 10 a.m. on many other days this month.
As he put the chalk tablet in his mouth, Colangelo refreshed the Supreme Court’s website and SCOTUS’s blog once again, waiting for the words “West Virginia v. EPA” to materialize on screen.
But the words did not appear. Instead, even more flashes on her Garmin watch’s heart rate monitor.
“Every morning at 10 a.m., my anxiety grows,” Collangelo, who runs the Clinic for Environmental Law and Justice at Georgetown University Law Center, told The Climate 202.
Like Colangelo, environmental lawyers and climate activists across the country are preparing for the Supreme Court ruling in West Virginia v. EPAa challenge to the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector.
After a month of waiting, the court is expected to decide the case this morning, ending an extraordinary deadline that saw explosive decisions on weapons and abortion.
A conservative majority could reduce the federal government’s ability to cope with carbon emissions from power plants, which is a major contributor to climate change. And the delay of the court in resolving the case has had great psychological consequences.
“Everyone around this office is anxiously crouching over their computer at 10 a.m., pushing for a renewal of the 10-minute mark over and over again to see what our fate will be,” said Jack Lienke, director of regulatory policy at the Institute for Policy Integrity. at New York University School of Law told The Climate 202.
“I don’t quite understand why it’s done in a way that posts are posted every 10 minutes,” he added. “It creates a lot of tension.”
Jason Rylander, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said he cleared his schedule at 10 a.m. most days of Supreme Court hearings, only to realize he would have to wait longer for a decision.
“As Tom Petty said, waiting is the hardest part,” Rylander said.
Although the expected decision has caused concern among some, it has eagerly awaited John Mangalonzo, a spokesman for West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey (R), who co-led the legal challenge with other Republican attorneys general and coal companies.
“This has been going on for years,” Mangalonzo told The Climate 202, referring to decades of conservative legal movements to limit the power of administrative agencies.
“They save the best for last,” he added.
Lienke said the delay in resolving the case could mean the court will dismiss it as unexpectedly granted – or a DIG in legal language – as immigration judges did this month.
“I hope this is an indication that the judges who voted to hear this case in the first place feel a little remorse from the buyer,” he said.
But other environmental lawyers said the scenario seemed unlikely. They said it was clear from oral arguments in February that at least five conservative judges supported limiting EPA’s power to reduce carbon pollution from power plants under section 111 of the Clean Air Act.
“I hope they dig it up, but I don’t count on it,” said Jody Freeman, a professor at Harvard Law School.
The biggest question, lawyers said, is whether the court issues a narrow decision or a broad decision with potentially devastating consequences for the ability of other federal agencies to deal with pressing public issues.
The narrow solution would rely on the clear language of the Clean Air Act, which instructs the EPA to determine the “best emission reduction system” for power plants. A broad solution could rely on the doctrine of fundamental issues, which states that federal agencies need explicit permission from Congress to address issues of “great economic and political importance.”
Whatever the outcome, Colangelo – and her heart rate monitor – will be ready.
“The stakes,” she said, “can’t be higher.”
Exclusive: More than 650 hospitals are committed to halving emissions by 2030
The White House will announce today that 61 of the country’s largest hospitals and health companies have joined the health sector’s climate promise, halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, according to details shared exclusively with The Climate 202.
The new commitment covers more than 650 hospitals and thousands of providers across the country. It includes two of the five largest private hospitals and health systems in the United States, Ascension and CommonSpirit Health.
The move aims to help achieve President Biden’s goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, as the healthcare industry accounts for about 8.5% of total emissions in the United States. This comes as climate change is increasingly recognized as a public health problem, with research showing that global warming affects public health through more frequent and intense weather disasters, extreme heat and threats to food and water security.
“During his first day in office, President Biden commissioned us to mobilize climate ambition and large emission reductions from every sector of our economy,” White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy said in a statement. “Today is another milestone in realizing his vision, aligning America’s largest healthcare companies and hospitals with the president’s bold goal of halving emissions by 2030.
Organizations – including public hospitals, health centers, pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers and suppliers – will also develop climate resilience plans for their facilities, including plans to support individuals or communities most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
Manchin is seeking climate, energy concessions as reconciliation talks continue
Senator Joe Manchin III (DW.Va.) seeks concessions from Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (DN.Y.) on contested climate and energy provisions in President Biden’s budget reconciliation package as Democrats race to reach an agreement for the bill for expenses before the August holidays, according to people familiar with the negotiations, Laura Davison, Eric Wasson and Ari Natter reported for Bloomberg News.
Manchin wants to make the package more favorable for fossil fuels by increasing drilling in the western Gulf of Mexico and including a tax credit for carbon capture technology, which environmentalists say extends the life of coal-fired power plants and is not an effective way to prevent catastrophic disasters. warming, people said.
Manchin has also expressed interest in extending the tax credit for blue hydrogen or a type of hydrogen produced from natural gas. And lawmakers are struggling with the value and eligibility requirements of the federal tax credit for electric vehicles.
A tax on methane emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas, is expected to be included in the package, Senate Environment and Public Works President Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) Said last week.
Climate groups are suing the Biden administration over new oil and gas leases
A coalition of environmental groups is suing the Biden administration on Wednesday for resuming oil and gas sales on federal land in four western states, Zack Budrick told Hill.
According to the lawsuit, leasing sales in Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, and Utah violate Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which requires the Department of the Interior to prevent “unnecessary or improper deterioration” of public lands. Plaintiffs include the Western Environmental Law Center, WildEarth Guardians and the Sierra Club.
“Huge scientific evidence shows us that burning fossil fuels from existing federal leases is incompatible with a habitable climate,” said Melissa Hornbein, a senior attorney at the Western Center for Environmental Law.
Meanwhile, another coalition of environmental groups is suing Home Secretary Deb Haaland and the Land Management Bureau in a bid to halt drilling plans in Wyoming, the site of the largest planned lease sale to date with 120,000 acres of public land offered for oil. and gas companies, Ella Nielsen told CNN.
The groups claim that the federal government has not taken into account the environmental consequences of the sale, including the impact on groundwater, wildlife and emissions that warm the planet. The environmental law firm Earthjustice filed the complaint on behalf of the Wilderness Society and Friends of the Earth.
The heat suffocates the Japanese power grid
About 37 million people living near Tokyo have been told to save electricity as one of Japan’s worst heat waves burdens the power grid, Karina Tsui, Julia Mio Inuma and Ian Livingston told The Washington Post.
For the first time, the Japanese government has called on businesses and homes to reduce energy consumption between 3pm and 6pm on certain days. The guidelines prompted some people to turn off freezers and air conditioners, while others were advised to work in the dark.
Energy demand in the country is at its peak since 2011 amid the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry calling the mismatch between supply and demand “serious”. Japan has been battling power outages since March, when an earthquake in the northeast shut down some of the country’s nuclear power plants.
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