WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) - The House Energy and Commerce Committee said on Tuesday it plans a June 20 hearing on the Trump administration’s proposal to freeze fuel efficiency standards at 2020 levels through 2026.

Two subcommittees will jointly hold the hearing, committee chairman Frank Pallone and other Democrats said in a statement, saying they “look forward to questioning both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.” (Reporting by David Shepardson Editing by Phil Berlowitz) </s> WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) - The House Energy and Commerce Committee said on Tuesday it plans a June 20 hearing on the Trump administration's proposal to freeze fuel efficiency standards at 2020 levels through 2026.

Two subcommittees will jointly hold the hearing, committee chairman Frank Pallone and other Democrats said in a statement, saying they "look forward to questioning both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency."

Last week, 17 major automakers including General Motors Co , Volkswagen AG and Toyota Motor Corp urged the White House to resume talks with California aimed at avoiding a lengthy legal battle over the standards. (Reporting by David Shepardson Editing by Phil Berlowitz) </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee said on Tuesday it planned a June 20 hearing on the Trump administration’s proposal to freeze fuel efficiency standards at 2020 levels through 2026.

FILE PHOTO: The U.S. Capitol building reflected in water at sunrise on the day of the U.S. midterm election in Washington, U.S., November 6, 2018. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

Two subcommittees will jointly hold the hearing, committee Chairman Frank Pallone and other Democrats said in a statement, saying they “look forward to questioning both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.”

Heidi King, the deputy NHTSA administrator, and Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board, are both likely to testify at the hearing, officials said.

Last week, 17 major automakers including General Motors Co, Volkswagen AG and Toyota Motor Corp urged the White House to resume talks with California aimed at avoiding a lengthy legal battle over the standards.

Pallone and Representatives Jan Schakowsky and Paul Tonko said in a joint statement that “rolling back our clean car standards threatens American jobs, public health, the climate and consumers.

“The automobile industry doesn’t even support the Trump Administration’s proposal – no one does, except the oil companies that stand to profit from Americans spending more at the pump filling up less efficient cars,” the statement added.

Automakers last week backed a compromise on vehicle emissions, warning that the lack of a deal could lead to “an extended period of litigation and instability.”

In a letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom also signed by Daimler AG, Ford Motor Co and Hyundai Motor Corp, the 17 car companies urged a compromise “midway” between the Obama era standards that require annual decreases of about 5% in emissions and the Trump administration’s proposal.

In a separate letter to President Donald Trump last week, they urged “both the federal government and California to resume discussions and to remain open to regulatory adjustments.”

The White House said on Thursday that California had “failed to put forward a productive alternative, and we are moving forward to finalize a rule with the goal of promoting safer, cleaner, and more affordable vehicles.”

Eighteen states, including California, have vowed to sue the administration if it finalizes the freeze. In August 2018, the administration called for stripping California of the right to impose stricter emissions rules or to require a rising number of zero-emissions vehicles.

The Trump plan would increase U.S. oil consumption by about 500,000 barrels a day by the 2030s but reduce automakers’ regulatory costs by more than $300 billion, the agencies said. </s> A federal judge in Alaska late Friday declared President Trump’s order revoking a sweeping ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic Ocean illegal, putting 128 million acres of federal waters off limits to energy exploration.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason represented the third legal setback to Trump’s energy and environmental policies in a single week. On Friday the judge, who was appointed to the federal bench by Barack Obama in 2012, also blocked a land swap the Interior Department arranged that would pave the way for road through wilderness in a major national wildlife refuge in Alaska.

Earlier this week, a federal judge ruled that Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service illegally approved two gas drilling plans in western Colorado, on the grounds that officials did not adequately analyze their wildlife and climate impacts.

Trump’s rollbacks of Obama-era conservation policies have suffered nearly two dozen setbacks in federal court, largely on procedural grounds. While the administration is appealing many of these decisions, and holds an advantage if the cases reach the Supreme Court, the rulings have slowed the president’s drive to expand fossil fuel production in the United States.

Earlier this month, for example, a federal judge halted drilling on more than 300,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Wyoming. And Friday’s decision on offshore drilling could affect a five-year leasing plan the administration plans to issue this summer, as well as block the six offshore lease sales it proposed to schedule in the Arctic Ocean starting as early as this year.

“President Trump’s lawlessness is catching up with him,” Erik Grafe, the lead attorney from Earthjustice who argued to reinstate Obama’s leasing withdrawals in the Arctic and Atlantic, said in a statement Friday. “The judge’s ruling today shows that the president can not just trample on the constitution to do the bidding of his cronies in the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our oceans, wildlife, and climate.”

The Interior Department could not be immediately reached for comment.

In her Friday ruling, Gleason wrote that the law in which Congress gave the president authority over offshore drilling — the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act — expressly allows for leasing withdrawals but does not state that a subsequent president can revoke those withdrawals without congressional approval.

“As a result, the previous three withdrawals issued on January 27, 2015 and December 20, 2016 will remain in full force and effect unless and until revoked by Congress,” she wrote.

In a separate decision earlier in the day, Gleason found that then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke did not provide sufficient justification for reversing the government’s stance on whether to allow a small, remote Alaska town to construct a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

Residents of King Cove have argued for years that they need to bisect the refuge, which has been protected for decades and provides a critical rest stop for migratory waterfowl, to ease medical situations under rough weather. Opponents counter that the federal government has provided millions in funding to provide town residents with alternative forms of transport, and that a road would fragment critical habitat.

“Here, the Secretary’s failure to acknowledge the change in agency policy and his failure to provide a reasoned explanation for that change in policy are serious errors,” Gleason wrote.

The third adverse decision the administration received this week came in a ruling from U.S. District Judge Lewis T. Babcock, a Ronald Reagan appointee. A coalition of environmental groups had challenged adjacent plans to drill a total of 171 wells in Colorado’s North Fork Valley, which provides key habitat for elk and mule deer. </s> The French Government have announced that, by 2040, the nation will ban all petrol and diesel fuelled vehicles.

The new French Environment minister, Nicolas Hulot, made the bold statement earlier today, also adding that France pledges to be carbon neutral ten years later, by 2050.

The news comes on the same day that Swedish automotive giants Volvo have committed to stop producing solely petrol and diesel powered cars as soon as 2019, focusing its production towards hybrid vehicles, that run of both traditional fuels but also electricity.

Of course, this progressive move by the French government will be a shot in the arm for environmental campaigners, but will also have a significant impact on the motoring industry, and the estimated 38 million car owners already living in France.

However, Hulot suggested that the government had already conceived projects that ensure the country “can fulfill that promise”, including poorer households being offered a premium to allow them to swap their traditional fuelled vehicle for one that is better for the environment.

Today’s announcement is part of a five year plan that will see France encourage green energy use, and fulfil the nation’s commitment to the Paris Agreement, something US president Donald Trump has reneged on in June this year.

“We want to demonstrate that fighting against climate change can lead to an improvement of French people’s daily lives” Hulot stated at a press conference. France has joined the netherland and norway, who want to see the end of petrol and diesel cars as soon as 2025, along with german and India, who’ve committed to similar plan by 2030.

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10 Animals That Look Like Donald Trump </s> President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Tuesday taking steps to unravel the most contentious climate-change policies of his predecessor, the White House said.

The Trump administration will formally review President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which requires utilities to reduce power plant carbon-dioxide emissions 32% below 2005 levels by 2030, a senior White House official said Monday night.

Officials will also pull back August 2016 guidance from the Council on Environmental Quality on climate change and official estimates of the social cost of carbon, methane and nitrous oxide, and rescind a temporary ban on new coal leases on federal lands that Obama’s Interior Department issued in early 2016.

Certain other presidential memorandums issued by Obama on environmental matters would also be canceled, the official said. The moves are all but certain to trigger legal and political pushback from supporters of the Obama administration’s policies on the climate, who include Democrats and environmentalists.

An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.

White House opens door to Democrats in wake of health-bill failure.

The high-speed trading behind your Amazon purchase. </s> The Trump administration is easing rules for handling toxic coal ash from more than 400 coal-fired power plants across the U.S. after utilities objected to regulations adopted under former President Barack Obama.

Environmental Protection Agency acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said Wednesday the changes will save utilities roughly $30 million annually.

Documents show most savings come from extending by 18 months the deadline for utilities to close ash dumps that don't meet water protection standards.

The EPA also is giving state regulators the power to suspend water monitoring requirements for the dumps.

The original Obama-era rule came in response to a massive 2008 coal ash spill in Kingston, Tennessee.

Environmentalists say the administration has caved to the industry's wishes and is endangering the health of people living near power plants. </s> WASHINGTON, March 28 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to undo a slew of Obama-era climate change regulations that his administration says is hobbling oil drillers and coal miners, a move environmental groups have vowed to take to court.

The decree's main target is former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan that required states to slash carbon emissions from power plants - a critical element in helping the United States meet its commitments to a global climate change accord reached by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015.

The so-called "Energy Independence" order also reverses a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, undoes rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas production, and reduces the weight of climate change and carbon emissions in policy and infrastructure permitting decisions.

"I am taking historic steps to lift restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion, and to cancel job-killing regulations," Trump said at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters, speaking on a stage lined with coal miners.

The wide-ranging order is the boldest yet in Trump´s broader push to cut environmental regulation to revive the drilling and mining industries, a promise he made repeatedly during the presidential campaign. But energy analysts and executives have questioned whether the moves will have a big effect on their industries, and environmentalists have called them reckless.

"I cannot tell you how many jobs the executive order is going to create but I can tell you that it provides confidence in this administration´s commitment to the coal industry," Kentucky Coal Association president Tyler White told Reuters.

Trump signed the order with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Vice President Mike Pence by his side.

U.S. presidents have aimed to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil since the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, which triggered soaring prices. But the United States still imports about 7.9 million barrels of crude oil a day, almost enough meet total oil demand in Japan and India combined.

While Trump's administration has said reducing environmental regulation will create jobs, some green groups have countered that rules supporting clean energy have done the same.

The number of jobs in the U.S. wind power industry rose 32 percent last year while solar power jobs rose by 25 percent, according to a Department of Energy study.

Environmental groups hurled scorn on Trump's order, arguing it is dangerous and goes against the broader global trend toward cleaner energy technologies.

"These actions are an assault on American values and they endanger the health, safety and prosperity of every American," said billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, the head of activist group NextGen Climate.

Green group Earthjustice was one of many organizations that said it will fight the order both in and out of court. "This order ignores the law and scientific reality," said its president, Trip Van Noppen.

An overwhelming majority of scientists believe that human use of oil and coal for energy is a main driver of climate change, causing a damaging rise in sea levels, droughts, and more frequent violent storms.

But Trump and several members of his administration have doubts about climate change, and Trump promised during his campaign to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, arguing it would hurt U.S. business.

Since being elected Trump has been mum on the Paris deal and the executive order does not address it.

Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change who helped broker the Paris accord, lamented Trump's order.

"Trying to make fossil fuels remain competitive in the face of a booming clean renewable power sector, with the clean air and plentiful jobs it continues to generate, is going against the flow of economics," she said.

The order will direct the EPA to start a formal "review" process to undo the Clean Power Plan, which was introduced by Obama in 2014 but was never implemented in part because of legal challenges brought by Republican-controlled states.

The Clean Power Plan required states to collectively cut carbon emissions from power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

Some 85 percent of U.S. states are on track to meet the targets despite the fact the rule has not been implemented, according to Bill Becker, director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, a group of state and local air pollution control agencies.

Trump´s order also lifts the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management's temporary ban on coal leasing on federal property put in place by Obama in 2016 as part of a review to study the program's impact on climate change and ensure royalty revenues were fair to taxpayers.

It also asks federal agencies to discount the cost of carbon in policy decisions and the weight of climate change considerations in infrastructure permitting, and reverses rules limiting methane leakage from oil and gas facilities. (Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner; writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Mary Milliken and Jeffrey Benkoe) </s> EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox apologized but didn't explain why the EPA withdrew its support. As he told Reuters in an email "It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that [the EPA doesn't] plan to fund an awards ceremony on climate change." To start with, the administration's proposed budget for 2018 will see its funding cut by 31 percent, which will specifically affect its climate change and pollution initiatives. Even without the budget cut, though, it's hard to imagine the EPA supporting a climate change award in its current state.

Earlier this year, the agency pulled down its climate science pages to reflect the views of the White House. The president also signed an executive order rolling back climate policies approved by the previous administration. And let's not forget that the United States withdrew from the Paris Accord, an agreement between 142 countries to make an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

While the awards program for 2018 was canceled, the EPA's former co-sponsors, non-government organizations C2ES and the Climate Registry, intend to continue the tradition. They're now looking for a new co-sponsor willing to fund and host the program in the future.
A committee of the US House of Representatives announces that it will hold a hearing next Thursday (June 20) to examine fuel efficiency standards, as the Trump administration presses for a rollback of an Obama-era schedule of 5% reductions in emissions per year.