OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Pope’s aide scolds climate skeptics
WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?: Pope Francis’ closest adviser sharply criticized perceived “movements” trying to undermine a forthcoming climate change encyclical before it’s even out.
Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga pointed the finger at conservative climate change skeptics in the United States, saying capitalism is to blame for their policies.
“The ideology surrounding environmental issues is too tied to a capitalism that doesn’t want to stop ruining the environment because they don’t want to give up their profits,” Rodríguez told reporters Tuesday, according to the Boston Globe’s Crux blog.
{mosads}Rodríguez spoke at the Vatican at the launch of a meeting of Catholic charities.
He blasted the premature criticisms of the encyclical, which Francis hopes to release in the coming months to influence the United Nations’ negotiations toward an international climate pact this December.
“I have already heard criticism over the encyclical,” Rodríguez said of the United States, adding that it is “absurd” to be so negative about a document that no one in the public has seen.
Read more here.
HOUSE VOTING ON WATER RULE: The House will vote tonight on the Regulatory Integrity Protection Act, which would overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “waters of the United States” rule.
A similar bill passed the House last year and this one has a good chance of passing easily.
It’s the result of Republican concerns that the EPA’s rule would greatly expand its jurisdiction over minor water bodies and wet areas.
The Obama administration has threatened to veto the bill, saying that it would impede the EPA’s important work to protect water from pollution under the Clean Water Act.
Stay tuned at TheHill.com for the vote.
ON TAP WEDNESDAY I: Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) will introduce her bill to roll back the Obama administration’s proposed greenhouse gas rules for power plants.
Capito’s state is among the nation’s leaders in coal production, an industry that has warned it would be hurt by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan.
Capito has only hinted at what will be included in her bill, including in an op-ed in the Charleston Daily Mail earlier this week.
ON TAP WEDNESDAY II: The House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on the Council on Environmental Quality’s greenhouse gas guidance and climate change. Christy Goldfuss, the managing director of the Council on Environmental Quality, will testify.
Rest of Wednesday’s agenda …
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) will speak at the Alliance to Save Energy’s Energy Efficiency Global Forum.
Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) and Ann Miles, director of the Office of Energy Projects at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, will testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Energy and Power Subcommittee on hydropower regulations.
House Agriculture’s Biotechnology, Horticulture and Research Subcommittee will hold a hearing on the health of bees and other pollinators. The Department of Agriculture’s acting chief economist, Robert Johansson, and the EPA’s Office of Safety and Pollution Prevention Assistant Administrator Jim Jones will testify.
The House Science Committee’s Energy panel will hold a hearing on nuclear energy innovation and the National Labs. Industry officials are scheduled to testify.
Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze will testify before the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee on the department’s 2016 budget request.
NEWS BITE: Ethanol lobbying group Fuels America is launching an ad campaign to try to convince the Obama administration to increase ethanol mandates.
Fuels America, which represents companies involved in ethanol production, refining and other activities, is framing the issue as a choice for the administration between supporting rural communities by increasing the mandate or following the oil industry by decreasing it.
“Expanded renewable fuel production has created over 850,000 jobs. And the American biofuel industry produces the world’s cleanest fuel from agricultural waste,” a voice in a new television ad says. “But the oil industry wants the EPA to protect their profits and foreign oil.”
The campaign will include a six-figure ad buy starting Wednesday in the Washington, D.C., market, along with digital ads on various political news sites.
The White House Office of Management and Budget is currently reviewing proposed volume mandates for 2014 through 2016.
AROUND THE WEB:
State lawmakers are increasingly looking at divesting fossil fuels from their pension plans, but they didn’t have much success actually doing it this year, Pew’s Stateline reports.
Amid the state’s oil boom, a North Dakota company has landed on a new market: caviar. “We have a good of time as anyone can, gutting hundreds of paddlefish,” a producer tells Reuters.
The natural gas industry is getting deeply involved in Philadelphia’s mayoral race, and now all the Democratic candidates want to turn the city into an “energy hub,” NPR’s StateImpact reports.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Check out Tuesday’s stories …
– Senators introduce bills to increase offshore drilling
– Industry files suit to stop new oil train rules
– EPA to put added focus on nail salons
– Pope’s top adviser blasts US climate skeptics
– Senate bill would create national renewable electricity standard
– Billionaire coal executive to run for W.Va. governor
– Major coal company files for bankruptcy
– Gas tax hike safe politically, analysis says
– Obama administration offers $35 million for coal communities
– Report: FBI broke internal rules for Keystone XL protesters
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