By Andy Rowell The ultimate corporate greenwashing experience starts in Washington, DC Monday, when some of America’s dirtiest polluters participate in what is being billed the “National Clean Energy Week.” In the current political “post-factual” era, it would be easy to be fooled. The promotional material sounds great. What is there not to like? According […]
By Ben Jervey The Koch brothers have landed yet another of their trusted fossil fuel think tank veterans in the Trump administration’s Department of Energy (DOE). Alex Fitzsimmons was manager of policy and public affairs at the Institute for Energy Research (IER) and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), while also working as […]
By Daniel Raimi In recent weeks, a new energy buzzword has taken flight from Washington, DC, making stops in Alaska, North Dakota, Texas, Utah and more: “American energy dominance.” Taking a cue from a 2016 speech by then-candidate Donald Trump, top federal officials including Energy Sec. Rick Perry and Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke have begun […]
President Donald Trump has approved the construction of a new U.S.-Mexico pipeline that will go “right under” the controversial border wall. According to The Hill, the New Burgos Pipeline will carry up to 108,000 barrels per day of refined petroleum products per day and cross the border between McAllen, Texas and Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico. The […]
By Dave Anderson Travis Fisher, a Trump political appointee in the Department of Energy, wrote a 2015 report for the Institute for Energy Research that called clean energy policies “the single greatest emerging threat” to the nation’s electric power grid, and a greater threat to electric reliability than cyber attacks, terrorism or extreme weather. Fisher […]
By Elliott Negin When The Washington Post reported earlier this month that President Trump appointed Daniel Simmons to run the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the paper called him a “conservative scholar.” Conservative scholar? “Fossil fuel industry propagandist” would have been more accurate. A veteran of […]
By Dave Anderson Rick Perry said Tuesday that the Trump administration is having “very classified” conversations about preempting state and local support for renewable energy under the pretense of national security. Perry’s remarks came during an on-stage interview at the 2017 Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit. As Bloomberg reported: During an on-stage interview, Perry was […]
By now it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Trump administration is wiping Obama-era climate initiatives off the Internet. This time, the Department of Energy (DOE) has significantly altered its websites on renewable energy, removing references on how clean energy technologies can reduce the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels and help lower climate-changing emissions. The […]
A supervisor at the Department of Energy‘s Office of International Climate and Clean Energy told staff to stop using the phrases “climate change,” “emissions reduction” and “Paris agreement” in any official written communications, according to POLITICO‘s sources. The instructions were reportedly given at a Tuesday meeting held shortly after President Trump‘s latest controversial executive order […]