OVERNIGHT ENERGY: GOP seeks state opt-out for EPA rule

OPT-OUT: The Senate could vote this week on an amendment to the budget resolution that would significantly weaken the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) climate rule for power plants.

The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), would let state governors or legislatures avoid complying with the rule’s requirements for a wide variety of reasons.

{mosads}To opt out, a state would only have to conclude that the rule would harm low-income or fixed-income households, risk electricity reliability, or hurt power-plant investment, among other harms.

If Senate leaders allow a vote on the measure, it would likely come Wednesday or Thursday during one of the Senate’s budget “vote-a-rama” sessions.

Portman has at least three co-sponsors for the amendment.

Read more here.

GET THE KOCH OUT: Dozens of scientists and environmental groups are asking the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and the American Museum of Natural History to cut ties with the Koch brothers, billionaire conservative donors.

David Koch has donated millions to both organizations, sits on their boards and has his name on sections of both museums dealing with dinosaurs and human origins.

“When some of the biggest contributors to climate change and funders of misinformation on climate science sponsor exhibitions in museums of science and natural history, they undermine public confidence in the validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific knowledge,” the scientists wrote in their letter. “This corporate philanthropy comes at too high a cost.”

Read more here.

ON TAP WEDNESDAY I: The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subpanel for the environment on Wednesday will continue the markup meeting it started Tuesday for its bill to change the EPA’s coal ash regulation.

ON TAP WEDNESDAY II: The House Science Committee will hold a markup on its bill aimed at improving and modernizing how the federal government forecasts weather.

Rest of Wednesday’s agenda …

The House Natural Resources Committee will continue its markup of nine bills in its jurisdiction. 

The Center for American Progress will hold a discussion Wednesday on efforts to expand access to solar power. It will feature state Senator Kevin de León (D), the president pro tempore of the California state Senate; and Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden.

The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced and International Studies will host an event Wednesday on the Arctic. It will focus on energy, economic and political issues facing the United States as it starts its term chairing the Arctic Council.

Budget hearings …

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will testify Wednesday at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Energy Department’s budget request for fiscal 2016.

Subcommittees of the House Appropriations Committee will hold hearings Wednesday on the fiscal 2016 budget requests for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration and the Energy Department’s military nuclear agencies.

AROUND THE WEB:

The National Park Service is proposing to use dogs to repel Canada geese from the National Mall, where their feces has been building up and presenting a major problem, DCist reports.

Maryland’s House of Delegates passed a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing Tuesday, and the Senate passed strict new limits on the practice, the Baltimore Sun reports.

Tuesday marked the 26th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez disaster, and Time reports that Alaska’s shores are still suffering.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Check out Tuesday’s stories …

– EPA prioritizes contaminated sites in Michigan, Indiana
– Senators push bipartisan bill to build nuclear waste dump
– GOP amendment would let the states opt out of EPA climate rule
– Rolls-Royce engine company will pay $1.2 million for violating Clean Air Act
– Green ads hit vulnerable GOP senators for climate votes
– Scientists to Smithsonian: Cut Koch ties
– Greens: Obama caved on fracking

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