Trump Names BP Oil Spill Lawyer as Top Environmental Attorney
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday his intention to nominate Jeffrey Bossert Clark—who defended BP in lawsuits surrounding the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and challenged the Obama administration over greenhouse gas rules on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—to head the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division.
Clark is a partner in the Washington, DC office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP and once served in George W. Bush's administration from 2001 to 2005 as a deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division.
"He is a complex trial and appellate litigator with especially deep experience in administrative law, cutting across dozens of statutes and numerous agencies," the White House announced.
However, as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. commented, "Clark's appointment is a doubling down on the administration's strategy of retreating from the future and branding America as a petrostate while China steals our global energy, economic and moral leadership, and the rest of the world moves forward."
InsideClimate News described Clark as a "climate policy foe" who has "repeatedly argued that it is inappropriate to base government policymaking on the scientific consensus presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC]."
According to the publication, "One of the legal briefs he signed is such a comprehensive compendium of thoroughly debunked denial of the scientific consensus that it stands as a classic of the genre, replete with condemnations not just of the EPA but of the IPCC, whose work the petitioners tried to persuade the court to rule out of bounds. A series of podcasts and papers he has written on The Federalist Society website continue his arguments against the endangerment finding and climate science more broadly."
Clark has also criticized the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for concluding in late 2009 that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threatens the public health and the environment and should be regulated under the Clean Air Act. As Clark wrote in a 2010 blog post over the EPA's endangerment finding, "When did America risk coming to be ruled by foreign scientists and apparatchiks at the United Nations?"
"He has a long history of opposing climate action for corporate and ideological clients," David Doniger, who heads the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, told InsideClimate News about Clark. "I would expect that history would require him to recuse himself from such cases as over the Clean Power Plan, where he filed an amicus brief against the rule."
EU Launches In-Depth Investigation Into Bayer-Monsanto $66 Billion Merger
The European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, announced Tuesday it has opened an in-depth investigation into Bayer's proposed $66 billion takeover of Monsanto over "concerns that the merger may reduce competition in areas such as pesticides, seeds and traits."
The controversial merger, if successful, will form the world's largest integrated seed and pesticide company.
Pruitt Appears in Big Beef Video Urging Farmers to Kill Clean Water Rule
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Scott Pruitt appears in a video sponsored by the beef industry calling on farmers and ranchers to file official comments on a proposal to withdraw and rewrite the Obama-era "Waters of the United States" rule (or WOTUS) before the Aug. 28 deadline.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) video was produced by the beef lobbying organization's policy division, Beltway Beef and was released last week. Notably, NCBA spent $117,375 in lobbying last year.
Here's How 139 Countries Can Convert to 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
Two years ago, Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson and his collaborators published a widely circulated study that detailed how the U.S. can eliminate nuclear, biofuels and fossil fuels and transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.
Now, in a paper published Wednesday in the new scientific journal Joule, Jacobson and 26 co-authors created clean energy roadmaps not just for the 50 United States, but for 139 individual countries.
'Climate Change' Removed From National Institutes of Health Website
The effects of climate change is inextricably linked to human health. The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that traps heat in the atmosphere, causing global temperatures to spike, air quality to worsen, all while fueling droughts, floods and storms that impact food and water security.
Climate change is making us sick in many ways, but it appears that the Trump administration trying to downplay this fact.
Trump Attorney Sues Greenpeace Over Dakota Access Pipeline in $300 Million Racketeering Case
By Steve Horn
Energy Transfer Partners, owner of the Dakota Access pipeline, has filed a $300 million Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) lawsuit against Greenpeace and other environmental groups for their activism against the long-contested North Dakota-to-Illinois project.
In its 187-page complaint, Energy Transfer alleges that "putative not-for-profits and rogue eco-terrorist groups who employ patterns of criminal activity and campaigns of misinformation to target legitimate companies and industries with fabricated environmental claims and other purported misconduct" caused the company to lose "billions of dollars."
Groundbreaking Harvard Study Confirms #ExxonKnew
ExxonMobil misled the public on what it knew about climate change and its link to fossil fuels, according to a groundbreaking new analysis of the company's internal and external communications.
In a study published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, Harvard postdoctoral fellow Geoffrey Supran and professor Naomi Oreskes reviewed nearly 200 communications on climate change from the oil giant, including scientific research, internal company memos and paid editorial features in the New York Times.
Court Rules FERC Failed to Adequately Review Environmental Impacts of Sabal Trail Pipeline
The U.S. District Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 Tuesday saying that the Federal Environmental Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) failed to adequately review the environmental impacts of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the fracked gas Sabal Trail pipeline, which runs more than 500 miles through Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
Gardening the Seas to Save the World's Corals
As ocean waters warm and acidify, corals across the globe are disappearing. Desperate to prevent the demise of these vital ecosystems, researchers have developed ways to "garden" corals, buying the oceans some much-needed time. University of Miami Rosenstiel School marine biologist Diego Lirman sat down with Josh Chamot of Nexus Media to describe the process and explain what's at stake. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
