Mike Pence Swung at Joe Manchin, and Joe Manchin Hit Back Harder 

Daily Beast – “Washington Sucks”

Mike Pence Swung at Joe Manchin, and Joe Manchin Hit Back Harder

A lot of liberals don’t have much love for the senator from West Virginia, but he just showed others in the party how to reply when this White House comes at you.

By Michael Tomasky      February 1, 2018

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY SARAH ROGERS/THE DAILY BEAST

Liberals like to scoff at Joe Manchin, but after yesterday I think it’s pretty obvious that a lot of them can learn something from the West Virginia senator. He knows how to hit back.

Vice President Mike Pence was in Lewisburg, West Virginia, Wednesday where he gave a speech that tore into Manchin. Pence attacked Manchin’s vote against the tax bill and then continued: “But it’s not just the tax cut. Senator Joe Manchin has voted no time and again on the policies that West Virginia needs. When the time came to repeal and replace the disaster of Obamacare, Joe voted no. When we empowered West Virginia to defund Planned Parenthood, Joe voted no.”

As you know, Donald Trump is popular in Manchin’s state. Gallup found this week that it’s his best state, at 61 percent approval. And Manchin is up for reelection this year (hence Pence’s tirade).

Under such circumstances, a lot of Democratic politicians would go hide. They’d start explaining defensively: Oh but I like the president. Oh but I voted for Gorsuch. Oh this, oh that.

Manchin, famous for that ad where he shot the cap-and-trade bill, apologized for nothing. He took square aim at Pence and tweeted: “The VP’s comments are exactly why Washington Sucks.” Far from giving any ground, he went on the attack in a second tweet: “I am shocked that after the @VP worked for almost a year in a divisive & partisan way to take healthcare away from almost 200k WVians, bankrupt our hospitals & push tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans & huge corporations that he would come to #WV & continue partisan attacks.”

Manchin, of course, has taken some pro-Trump votes. In a state like that, he has to. He also was the only Democrat to applaud Trump’s State of the Union address at certain points. But what’s smart and tough about his reply is that he’s saying to Pence (and inferentially to Trump): No. You guys are hurting the people of my state.

Nearly 200,000 people are losing their health care, in a state with high rates of uninsured people and a raging drug crisis and all kinds of bleak health care indicia. West Virginia—my home state, as some of you know—also ranks 49th in the number of millionaires, so it’s not as if that tax bill is exactly tailored to the needs of the state.

Is It Too Late to Save Abortion Access?

And don’t think that Manchin hasn’t taken some tough votes that by West Virginia standards took guts. On Planned Parenthood, back in 2015, after that infamous (but very heavily edited) video came out with the PPFA person speaking cavalierly about fetal organs, Manchin did indeed vote to cut the group’s funding. But then, an investigation ensued, and it turned out that Planned Parenthood wasn’t engaged in any of those kinds of activities. So in March 2017, Manchin voted against a Republican defunding bill.

That’s not an easy vote in West Virginia. Manchin press aide Jonathan Kott defended his boss’ position this way last May to Axios: “‘The senator will vote to fund Planned Parenthood because the investigations showed no evidence that the organization was selling or profiting from fetal organs. His support for PP is also contingent on the Hyde Amendment being law, to ensure public funds don’t go to abortions.’ Kott also points out that the only Planned Parenthood clinic in West Virginia doesn’t perform abortions.”

That’s admirably fact-based. It’s going to open Manchin up to some ugly 30-second ads this fall, probably. Manchin may not be pro-choice advocates’ favorite Democrat (and he wouldn’t want to be), but liberals ought to ask themselves if any of the West Virginia Republicans vying to run against Manchin would be that bold.

But now let’s get to the heart of the matter to me, which is the opioid crisis. It’s killing the state. Read this heartbreaking report about the town of Kermit, sometimes called the ground zero of the opioid crisis, from the excellent web site 100 Days in Appalachia, which has been vividly chronicling life in the region since the election. It’s merely one of hundreds of stories.

Did Pence take time out from his diatribe against Manchin to address the crisis? Oh, he mentioned it, once. Boilerplate; the usual fulsome and cloying praise of Trump that we’ve come to associate with the vice president. But he said nothing of substance—you might call his line substance abuse.

He was following up on Dear Leader’s shocking discussion of the crisis in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. “In 2016, we lost 64,000 Americans to drug overdoses: 174 deaths per day. Seven per hour,” Trump said. Good start. But then what did he pivot to? Not treatment. “We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge,” he said.

This is so idiotic as to be offensive. If you get rid of one drug dealer, three others fight to take his place. Anybody knows this at this point. Trump mentioned treatment afterward, but in a pro forma sort of way. The Republicans won’t do anything real about this crisis because doing something real about it takes money, and they won’t spend money; it might even require a tax, and we all know they will never do that.

My family has known Joe’s for a long time. My father was a prominent attorney who was involved in Democratic politics. Joe’s uncle, A. James, was the flamboyant secretary of state forever when I was kid, with his floral ties and wide-brimmed fedoras and his erudite 19th-century vocabulary (he once called a man who had sullied the state’s good name a “scurrilous jackanapes”). So yes, I have a soft spot for him.

After this exchange with Pence, you should too. More liberal Democrats, Democrats who are far better positioned to be Trump critics, can learn a thing or two from how he handled this.

Toxic Tar Creek continues to harm residents, as cleanup stalls

ThinkProgress

Toxic Tar Creek continues to harm residents, as cleanup stalls

“Its robbery. It was all preventable. This shouldn’t have happened.”

Rebecca Nagle        February 1, 2018

TAR CREEK, OKLAHOMA (CREDIT: REBECCA JIM)

TAHLEQUAH, OKLAHOMA — When I was nine years old, the top 12 inches of dirt in my yard were excavated and hauled off by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

My family’s 1990s lead-contaminated topsoil on the north side of Joplin, Missouri was a small piece of one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in the United States. As a recent POLITICO investigation detailed, decades of mining lead, zinc, and other heavy metals contaminated the ground, air, and waterways of northeastern Oklahoma and parts of Kansas and Missouri so badly that local rivers run bright orange and residents have lead poisoning at three times higher the rate found in Flint, Michigan. Despite 34 years and over $300 million spent on cleanup, the massive Tar Creek Superfund site is far from restored.

In December, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, former attorney general of Oklahoma, announced a list of 21 Superfund sites — places that have been contaminated by hazardous waste — in need of expedited cleanup. Pruitt has called the decades-long remediation of sites like Tar Creek “unacceptable” and has repeatedly vowed to make Superfund site cleanup a priority. President Donald Trump’s budget, however, would have slashed the Superfund cleanup program by about 25 percent.

“We [Tar Creek] have always been on the list. What being on a new list means, I don’t have a clue,” said Rebecca Jim, director of LEAD Agency (Local Environmental Action Demanded), a citizens advocacy group in Miami, Oklahoma that is focused on the clean up efforts. “[Pruitt] might be paying more attention, but he is also telling Congress to cut money for Superfund and the EPA. How are they going to do more with less?”

Jim first became an advocate for her toxic community while she was working as an Indian counselor in Miami public schools and started noticing something in her students.

“Kids in Miami were different. Many of them had more difficulty settling down, paying attention, and staying on task. A lot of kids would drop out and give up,” she said.

A year into her new job, the local stream, Tar Creek, turned bright orange and all the fish died. The year after that, the EPA came.

TAR CREEK, OKLAHOMA (CREDIT: REBECCA JIM)

“We have a lot of people with kidney disease. We have a lot of people with cardiovascular disease. We have children that are being exposed before they are even born. I have former students that are dead already,” Jim said. “It’s robbery. It was all preventable. This shouldn’t have happened. And now their children will die as well if we don’t finish [the cleanup].”

In 1993, the University of Oklahoma found 34 percent of children in the Quapaw Tribe had lead blood levels above the federal safety limit, while the national average for elevated lead blood levels is just 3 percent.

A history of injustice

The injustice of Native residents in Northwest Oklahoma living in a poisonous environment with disastrous health consequences started over 150 years ago. In the mid-1800s, the Quapaw tribe was removed from their homeland in present-day Arkansas and relocated to a small stretch of land in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). At the time, the government “thought the land was worthless until all of a sudden they discovered all these minerals,” Tim Kent, the Environmental Director for the Quapaw Tribe, told ThinkProgress.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) had tribal members declared incompetent, so mining companies could lease their land. Quapaw citizens were appointed White “guardians” to ostensibly manage the royalties collected from mining. Only one-sixth of Quapaw landowners ever saw any of the money. The tribe is currently settling a lawsuit with BIA over the mismanaged funds.

The mining companies that profited greatly from illegally leased land produced half of the lead and zinc for bullets in both World Wars. But after the local mining industry ground to a halt in the 1960s, generations of residents now live with what was left behind. Ottawa County, in northeast Oklahoma, is dotted with man-made mountains built from toxic mine tailings that locals call “chat piles” — some are more than 13 stories tall. People used the chat to build roads, fill in driveways, and even line playgrounds.

Residents now know that dust from the chat contains high levels of lead, zinc, and other toxic heavy metals. When it rains, water flows through the chat piles and a maze of underground tunnels, until local streams are so polluted they turn an eerie orange. Mining left the ground so unstable that cave-ins have been known to swallow entire houses, the largest one eating nine.

After cleanup lagged for decades, the EPA contracted with the Quapaw Tribe in 2014 to remediate a historical site on tribal land. The Quapaw then asked if they could take charge of the entire cleanup effort themselves.

“The EPA was reluctant at first to turn it over because it had never been done before. We are the first Native American tribe to head up a cleanup effort,” Kent said. “We had the most at stake, so why shouldn’t we do it?”

While the EPA hesitated to turn the cleanup over to the Quapaw Tribe, Kent believes the pace of the cleanup has improved since they were awarded the contract. Their role has now been cited as a best practice in giving local institutions control with federal oversight. “Tar Creek cleanup is an excellent example of how the program should work,” Albert Kelly, senior adviser to the EPA administrator said. “State and local partners, Tribal partners, and EPA — all working together year-after-year to address historical pollution at this mega-site. It’s cooperative federalism working at its best.”

“We’ve removed two million tons of waste. There’s about 50 million more to move,” Kent said.

While the partnership between the tribe and the EPA is a step in the right direction, the main determining factor in how much longer residents in Ottawa County are going to live with toxic heavy metals in their air, ground and water, is funding. At the current rate of funding, Tar Creek is looking at several more decades of clean up. With Trump’s substantial cuts to the EPA budget, and the Superfund program in particular, the effort could take even longer. Oklahoma’s own environmental budget has also undergone significant cuts in the past few years, reinforcing the need for federal money to fund the cleanup.

“If [the EPA] wanted to fix it they would put more money in it and fix it all at once. They wouldn’t budget to do 100 acres at a time when there are 26,000 acres that need to be done,” Jim said.

Thirty years of clean up later

Rebecca Jim left her Oklahoma home early last week to fly to Washington, D.C. for a meeting with Pruitt and Kelly. Pruitt’s appointment of Kelly last year garnered widespread criticism after a report by the Intercept found that he has no background in science or environmental issues. The Oklahoma banker-turned-environmental-regulator was actually fined $125,000 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and banned from banking for life. While a banker, Kelly’s family business loaned Pruitt, then a state senator, money to buy a five-car garage home and a share in a minor league baseball team. Kelly also donated to Pruitt’s campaigns on multiple occasions.

The Superfund Task Force led by Kelly released a set of recommendations last year, all of which were immediately adopted by Pruitt. In response to a lawsuit asking for more information on the task force, the agency said it had no documentation, minutes, or written standards for choosing its members. Earlier this month, Kelly declined to testify at a congressional hearing about Superfund site clean up efforts. The EPA did not return ThinkProgress’ request for comment.

Leaders from Superfund sites across the United States were brought together for the EPA meeting by Lois Gibbs, whose advocacy over hazardous waste next to her home in Love Canal in upstate New York started the Superfund program.

“We settled down at the table across from the people who can make our lives, our land, our water safer, at Tar Creek, and at other damaged places around the country. We went to speak for every single American who one day wakes up to find they too are living near a superfund site,” Jim told ThinkProgress in an email.

Pruitt and Kelly politely listened to the group of citizen advocates from toxic communities, including a mother who had lost her son, but neither offered concrete solutions or promises for moving forward, Jim said. While the current administration is slashing funds for cleaning up toxic sites, they are also slashing regulations and oversight that prevent the creation of future sites. Mining ended at Tar Creek over 40 years ago. More than 30 years of clean up later, it is likely that local residents will continue live with the consequences for decades to come.

“Back in the early 1980s after Tar Creek had turned orange, everybody here thought the new EPA would do something and do it fast,” Jim said. “We’re still waiting.”

Rebecca Nagle is a Citizen of Cherokee Nation and a two spirit (queer) woman. She is currently a writer and organizer living in Baltimore, MD.

Checking in on Scott Walker’s Foxconn Experiment

Esquire

Checking in on Scott Walker’s Foxconn Experiment

This week in the laboratories of democracy.

 By Charles P. Pierce     February 1, 2018

 Getty Images

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what’s goin’ down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin’ gets done and where the sun is rising over that little Minnesota town.

Now that the holidays are far, far behind us, it’s time for the shenanigans and the chicanery to really get rolling in the lands beyond the Beltway. State legislatures are back in action, and that means laughs for all. Anyway, we begin in Wisconsin, where the deal to bring the Foxconn plant to Racine Count is beginning to look like a poke that sleeps at least a dozen pigs. For example, Foxconn is a very thirsty corporation. From The Chicago Tribune:

“Foxconn Technology Group is seeking an air emissions permit and the right to tap 7 million gallons of water a day from Lake Michigan, an early glimpse at the regulatory requirements the company faces in Wisconsin. The city of Racine asked the state Department of Natural Resources for permission Monday to divert water from the lake primarily to serve the planned display panel factory and campus, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.”

This has some local people wondering (again) how big a bag of magic beans was purchased from Foxconn by Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage this Midwest subsidiary. After all, there can’t have been too many places where the company could draw seven million gallons of fresh water per day. He wasn’t bidding against, for example, Utah. Plus, Foxconn still faces the hurdle of passing whatever state environmental regulations Walker and his pet legislature accidentally have left in place.

“Foxconn must acquire permits for air, wastewater and storm water. State legislation that gave Foxconn $3 billion in incentives also exempted the company from other environmental requirements, such as disturbing wetlands and building in stream beds. The filing indicates that Foxconn will begin with the construction and assembly of flat-panel displays, such as televisions. Then it will continue with a fabrication plant and glass manufacturing plant. Company officials hope to have the flat-panel plant operational by next January. Foxconn said the plant will emit nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, which contribute to ozone pollution. Ozone exposure can reduce lung function, cause aggravated asthma and other [lung] diseases.”

The usual corporate pinky-swearing is underway.

“The company said it will use environmentally friendly design features at the Mount Pleasant location and will work to reduce carbon emissions.”

My guess is that the latter “work” will fail and that Foxconn will feel sad about that for approximately 11 seconds.

RELATED STORY

The Death of Shame, or the Rise of Shamelessness?

We keep going north to Alaska—we go north, the rush is on—and we find ourselves in Wasilla. We look around for rampaging Palins and, finding none, we discover that the invaluable Mudflats blog has discovered another specimen of local fauna who’s worth looking at:

“Senator David Wilson (R-Wasilla) was outed on the AK Landmine for committing a weird and distasteful display of vulgarity and all-around inappropriate creepiness to a well-respected high-level staffer. We’ll call her Ann Smith [not her name]. The bottom line is that Wilson was trying to get a listen to a House Majority meeting happening behind closed doors. Ann Smith stood in front of the door and told the Senator nuh-uh. Because she was doing her job. Wilson, not to be dissuaded, got in her face, and alluded to the fact he was going to record the meeting on his phone, and acted like he was going to take a picture up her skirt. He held his arm down, with the phone camera pointed where it shouldn’t have been, and got about a foot away from her at the hem level of her skirt.”

All together now, class. “Ooh, ick!” Not only that, but Wilson got himself filmed being skeevy by some local television crews. Undaunted by his previous stupidity, Wilson called a press conference and…well, you know what’s coming by now.

“It was basically David Wilson, all alone just puttin’ himself out there in front of the cameras, denying the whole thing ever happened, calling the victim a liar, the media sitting in the room fake news, and demanding the resignation of Smith’s boss. It was like Trump-lite holding a press conference without a handler. Things were said that shouldn’t have been said, and the whole thing was a slow-motion train wreck… Come on, people. I mean, who are you going to believe, the guy inviting every media outlet to come watch him say, “LIAR!” or the multiple witnesses/reporters on the scene, and the security tape from the Capitol police…”

“Those of us at Wilson’s press availability were a bit gob-smacked that Wilson was delusional/foolish enough to deny repeatedly that the incident had occurred when it was ON TAPE. And we wondered if there would be any repercussions for his rambling accusations, victim blaming, and calling everyone “fake news.””

It’s on tape, dude. How many Wasilla politicians act stupidly on TV? All of them, Katie.

RELATED STORY

What You Need to Know About the Memo

Let us shake the mud of Wasilla off our shoes and go as fast as we can to Kentucky, where a local assistant police chief had become quite skilled at saying the quiet parts out loud. Really loud. From ABC News:

“The Facebook messages of concern, which accompanied the letter O’Connell sent to Evans, occurred from September to October 2016, O’Connell said. In the Facebook messages, Shaw and the recruit discussed a scenario for the recruit’s training in which he had to write a paper on the “right thing to do” if he were to come across three juveniles who were smoking marijuana, O’Connell wrote. The recruit appears to have come to Shaw for advice, telling him, “I’m so confused about this paper,” in the message, dated Oct. 5, 2016. “F— the right thing,” Shaw allegedly wrote. “If black shoot them.” Shaw allegedly made other “racially threatening statements,” which included instructions on “how to handle the juveniles’ parents,” according to the letter. “…if mom is hot then f— her,” Shaw allegedly wrote. “…if dad is hot then handcuff him and make him s— my d—.” Shaw allegedly continued, “Unless daddy is black…Then shoot him…”

As The Louisville Courier-Journal reports, Shaw and his lawyer don’t understand why people don’t have a sense of humor about this stuff anymore.

“In the messages he said he’s going to change the name of his dog, Tiger, because it’s a n—– name and joked about a photo of graffiti that shows the Bugs Bunny character Elmer Fudd standing in front of a sign that says “Negro Season.” Shaw’s lawyer said he was just “playing.””

And they fired him. Can you believe it? And this wasn’t even About Race because nothing ever is About Race.

From there, we scoot on up to Pennsylvania, where some serious lawlessness has broken out. You may recall that, the other day, a state court threw out Pennsylvania’s egregiously gerrymandered electoral map and demanded the legislature draw one up that didn’t quite so closely resemble Frank Luntz’s conception of Disney World. You might believe that’s the end of it, but you have reckoned without the thoroughgoing contempt that modern Republicans have for the law, from the legislative chambers in Harrisburg all the way up to the chambers of the United States Supreme Court. As to the first, from The Philadelphia Inquirer:

“Last week, the state high court ruled that Pennsylvania’s congressional map was the product of unconstitutional gerrymandering and ordered the General Assembly to submit files “that contain the current boundaries of all Pennsylvania municipalities and precincts” by noon Wednesday. In a letter to the court, Scarnati’s lawyers said he would not do so, repeating an argument they have made in the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court: The state court is overstepping its authority. “In light of the unconstitutionality of the Court’s Orders and the Court’s plain intent to usurp the General Assembly’s constitutionally delegated role of drafting Pennsylvania’s congressional districting plan, Sen. Scarnati will not be turning over any data identified in the Court’s Orders,” the lawyers wrote. While Scarnati’s lawyers said in a footnote that the senator does not actually have the requested data, the refusal signals that Scarnati will not comply with any future requests that could help the court draw its own map, said Drew Crompton, Senate Republicans’ top lawyer.”

Now, if you’re some poor sap who’s fighting, say, a water rights case, and the court tells you to turn over some data, and you refuse, you go to jail until you do. Unfortunately for us all, Scarnati may be acting in this lawless fashion because he has some lawless high-level back-up he can count on. From the L.A. Times:

“Last week Pennsylvania’s high court struck down the state’s election districts on the grounds they were drawn to give the GOP a 13-5 majority of its seats in the House of Representatives. Unlike other recent rulings, the state justices said they based their ruling solely on the state’s constitution. Usually, the U.S. Supreme Court has no grounds for reviewing a state court ruling that is based on state law.”

“Usually” is not a word that has much meaning in our current political moment.

“The Pennsylvania decision, if it stands, could be significant in November when Democrats hope for big gains in Congress. The state justices ordered a new election map to be drawn in the month ahead, and legal experts predicted it could shift two or three seats toward the Democrats. Late last week, the leaders of Pennsylvania’s legislature filed an emergency appeal with Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. seeking an order by Jan. 31 that would block the Pennsylvania ruling. They said it conflicted with a provision in the U.S. Constitution that says members of the House will be elected under rules “prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” As precedent, their lawyers cited the Bush vs. Gore ruling in 2000 in which the justices overruled the Florida Supreme Court and ended a manual recount of thousands of paper card ballots. Alito, who reviews emergency appeals from Pennsylvania and two other states, could have denied the appeal if he thought it had no chance of being granted. But late in the day Monday, he asked for a response by Feb. 4 from the League of Women Voters. His action suggests that he believes there is some prospect that a majority of his colleagues may grant the appeal.”

Ah, The Great Malignancy rears its head again, despite the fact that, in 2000, the Supreme Court made clear that Bush v. Gore applied only to the process of making George W. Bush the president of the United States and that it had no precedential value. As Scott Lemieux points out, the sudden reappearance of Zombie Rehnquist on the scene is extremely ominous.

RELATED STORY

Is Trump a Better President Than Abraham Lincoln?

And we conclude, as is our wont, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Saloon Pianist Friedman Of The Plains brings us the saga of yet another innovation of the 19th century that has found a home among the Sooners. From The Oklahoma Policy Institute:

“Heartbreaking stories of Oklahomans incarcerated for failure to pay their court costs have appeared everywhere from Oklahoma Watch to the New York Times, but we haven’t had a great understanding of just how many defendants are affected. A new OK Policy analysis of court records in five counties* shows that the number of people who are affected is staggering: In one county, as many as two in three criminal cases result in an arrest warrant for failure to pay at some point. It’s yet more evidence that the excessive fines and fees imposed on criminal defendants are creating enormous hardship for the people who can least afford it.”

And why is this occurring? Because god forbid anyone propose that Oklahomans tax themselves—or their energy industries—to pay for little things like the upkeep of local judiciaries.

“Courts and law enforcement agencies are ever more reliant on the money they collect due to declines in state funding. They devote a great deal of resources to pursuing, arresting, incarcerating, and adjudicating people who have failed to pay the outlandish sums that are demanded of them. The available evidence suggests that this is a losing financial proposition for the agencies involved, who end up spending more trying to collect debt than they gain in revenue.”

If you choose not to help fund your courts, you don’t live in a self-governing republic any more.

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page.

Pennsylvania GOP Leader Defies Court Order in Attempt to Preserve Partisan Gerrymander

Slate – The Slatest

Pennsylvania GOP Leader Defies Court Order in Attempt to Preserve Partisan Gerrymander

By Mark Joseph Stern      January 31, 2018     

Pennsylvania‘s current Republican gerrymander. Stephen Wolf/DailyKos

Pennsylvania Senate President pro tempore Joseph Scarnati announced on Wednesday that he will not comply with a state supreme court order to redraw Pennsylvania’s congressional lines. His open defiance of a court order raises the serious possibility that he may be held in contempt for brazenly violating the law.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down the state’s congressional map on Jan. 22, ruling that the egregiously partisan gerrymander ran afoul of the state constitution. It directed the GOP-controlled legislature to devise a new, nonpartisan map for the Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s approval, and noted that it would commission its own map if the elected branches could not come to an agreement. On Jan. 26, the court issued another order requesting data from the legislature “in anticipation of the possible eventuality that the General Assembly and the Governor do not enact a remedial congressional districting plan.” The court asked for “the current boundaries of all Pennsylvania municipalities and precincts” to help it draw a neutral map. It also noted that, if the legislature proposes its own map, it should include several reports proving that the new districts are fair and compact.

Through a letter from his lawyers, Scarnati flatly declared that he “will not be turning over any data identified in the Court’s Orders.” He pointed out that GOP legislators have already appealed the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Scarnati explained that he is so certain of SCOTUS intervention that he has decided to reject the state supreme court’s order.

There are two problems with this strategy. First, Republicans’ appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court will probably fail. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision was rooted entirely in state law, which should insulate it from SCOTUS review. But even if SCOTUS chose to intervene, Republicans would likely lose. As ThinkProgress’ Ian Millhiser has explained, their radical theory would bar any court, state or federal, from placing constitutional limitations on congressional redistricting. Pennsylvania Republicans are essentially asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strip the judiciary of its authority to regulate any form of gerrymandering. That’s quite the long shot, unless SCOTUS is keen to overturn Marbury v. Madison.

Second, even if the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s orders were of dubious constitutionality, Scarnati would be obligated to follow them until a higher court steps in. Lawmakers hold no special power to defy court orders with which they disagree as they await a higher court’s ruling. If they believe a court has misinterpreted the law, they may appeal its decision.
Scarnati has done exactly that. In the meantime, he must comply with his own state supreme court’s demands.

By failing to do so, Scarnati has put himself at real risk of contempt of court. It is remarkable—though not entirely surprising—to see a state legislator risk jail time in order to defend a flagrantly partisan gerrymander. Under the current map, Republicans have seized 13 out of Pennsylvania’s 18 congressional districts; a fairer map should hand Democrats at least three more seats. That might be enough for Democrats to win control of the House of Representatives in 2018. The stakes are sky high—but no political squabble can justify Scarnati’s decision to break the law.

One more thing

You depend on Slate for sharp, distinctive coverage of the latest developments in politics and culture. Now we need to ask for your support.

Our work is more urgent than ever and is reaching more readers—but online advertising revenues don’t fully cover our costs, and we don’t have print subscribers to help keep us afloat. So we need your help. If you think Slate’s work matters, become a Slate Plus member. You’ll get exclusive members-only content and a suite of great benefits—and you’ll help secure Slate’s future.

Join Slate Plus

White House seeks 72 percent cut to clean energy research

Washington Post – Economy

Democracy Dies in Darkness

White House seeks 72 percent cut to clean energy research, underscoring administration’s preference for fossil fuels

By Chris Mooney, Steven Mufson       January 31, 2018  

Filipinos ride energy efficient electric tricycles during a test drive in Taguig city, south of Manila, Philippines, 12 January 2018. The Department of Energy (DOE) donated 200 units of energy efficient electric tricycles to the affected residents of war-torn Marawi as part of its efforts to help rebuild the city. Photo by FRANCIS R. MALASIG/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock (Malasig/Epa-Efe/Rex/Shutterstock/Malasig/Epa-Efe/Rex/Shutterstock)

The Trump administration is poised to ask Congress for deep budget cuts to the Energy Department’s renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, slashing them by 72 percent overall in fiscal 2019, according to draft budget documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Many of the sharp cuts would likely be restored by Congress, but President Trump’s budget due out in February will mark a starting point for negotiations and offer a statement of intent and policy priorities.

The document underscores the administration’s continued focus on the exploitation of fossil fuel resources — or as Trump put it in his State of the Union address, “beautiful clean coal” — over newer renewable technologies seen as a central solution to the problem of climate change.

The Energy Department had asked the White House for more modest spending reductions for the renewable and efficiency programs, but people familiar with the process, who asked for anonymity to share unfinished budget information, said that the Office of Management and Budget insisted on the deeper cuts.

The cuts would also be deeper than those the Trump administration sought for the current fiscal year, but was unable to implement because of the budget impasse in Congress. The federal government has been operating on a series of continuing resolutions that have maintained existing spending. The current continuing resolution expires Feb. 8.

President Trump applauded his administration’s energy policy at a rally in Pensacola, Fla. on Dec. 8. (The Washington Post)

Spending for the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is set at a $2.04 billion level for the current fiscal year, which ends Oct. 1. Last year the administration asked for just $636.1 million, a decline of over two-thirds, though Congress did not implement the request. For 2019, the administration’s draft proposal would lower that request even further to $575.5 million.

The document also suggests substantial staff cuts, down from 680 in the enacted 2017 budget to 450 in 2019.

“It shows that we’ve made no inroads in terms of convincing the administration of our value, and if anything, our value based on these numbers has dropped,” said one EERE employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal budget information.

The Energy Department did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. The White House said in a statement: “We don’t comment on any leaked or pre-decisional documents prior to the release of the official budget.”

It is unclear whether the document represents a final budget proposal or will be subject to last-minute negotiation and revision. The federal budget is due out in February.

One source familiar with the negotiating process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely describe what the person had learnedsaid that the budget request had been lowered after negotiations with the Office of Management and Budget, and may have been lowered further because of a desire to channel more funding toward nuclear energy, a favored subject for Energy Secretary Rick Perry.

The funding requests represent a double whammy for renewable energy after the administration last week imposed tariffs on imported solar panels.

The tariff action e is likely to decrease the installation volumes of solar energy in coming years, according to industry analysts.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is perhaps best known for the solar “SunShot” program, which strives to drive down the price of solar energy.

The large bulk of its funding is deployed on research, most frequently at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Co. The vast majority of the laboratory’s $293 million budget in 2017 came from EERE.

But it’s far from clear the cuts would become a reality.

“”The president suggests a budget, but, under the Constitution, Congress passes appropriations bills,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R — Tenn.), an influential appropriator on energy issues, said in a statement.

The draft document says the administration will once again ask Congress to abolish the weatherization program, which has trained thousands of workers and helped reduce utility bills for thousands of homeowners. The budget proposal would also eliminate state energy grants.

The budget would ax research in fuel efficient vehicles by 82 percent, bio-energy technologies by 82 percent, advanced manufacturing by 75 percent and solar energy technology by 78 percent.

The proposal would cut funds for electric car technologies and fuel efficient vehicles — at $307 million currently the biggest of the program areas — to $ 56 million in 2019.

Money for bio-energy technologies have gone to research renewable fuels from nonfood sources.

The plan would also chop spending on more efficient building technologies and research into geothermal, hydro and wind power.

The renewable and efficiency programs represent about seven percent of the Energy Department’s overall budget. The majority of the department’s budget goes to maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile and cleaning up sites contaminated by federal nuclear programs.

Chris Mooney reports on science and the environment.

Steven Mufson covers energy and other financial matters. Since joining The Post, he has covered the White House, China, economic policy and diplomacy.

EPA delays Obama water rule

The Hill

EPA delays Obama water rule

By Timothy Cama     January 31, 2018

EPA delays Obama water rule© Greg Nash

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is pushing back by two years an Obama administration rule redefining the federal government’s power over small waterways.

The Trump administration is working to repeal the rule, dubbed the Clean Water Rule or Waters of the United States (WOTUS), and formally proposed to do so last year.

But earlier this month, the Supreme Court overturned a federal appeals court’s action halting the rule, so it could take effect soon.

EPA head Scott Pruitt said the Wednesday action is meant to stop the Clean Water Rule from taking effect due to the Supreme Court’s action.

“Today, EPA is taking action to reduce confusion and provide certainty to America’s farmers and ranchers,” Pruitt said in a statement.

“The 2015 WOTUS rule developed by the Obama administration will not be applicable for the next two years, while we work through the process of providing long-term regulatory certainty across all 50 states about what waters are subject to federal regulation.”

The EPA is taking the action alongside the Army Corps of Engineers, which also has responsibility for enforcing the Clean Water Act.

The Natural Resources Defense Council said the delay puts significant water supplies at risk, and said it would sue to stop the delay.

“EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is racing the clock to deny protections for our public health and safety. It’s grossly irresponsible, and illegal — and we’ll challenge it in court,” said Jon Devine, the group’s senior attorney.

The original 2015 rule was designed to clarify federal agencies’ authority and give them the power to regulate small waterways such as ponds, headwaters and wetlands for pollution prevention. It should have taken effect in 2015, but various courts halted it.

Republicans and many business groups fought the rule tooth and nail, saying it gave the federal government power over wide swaths of land.

Its repeal has been a top priority for President Trump, and he signed an order to repeal it shortly after taking office.

Pruitt is also working to develop a new rule to replace the Obama rule’s definitions once it is fully repealed. The replacement rule would likely give the federal government power over a significantly smaller area.

Toxic waste from coal ash pits leaching into Illinois’ only National Scenic River

Chicago Tribune

Toxic waste from coal ash pits leaching into Illinois’ only National Scenic River

Toxic coal ash waste can be seen leaking into the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River. (Prairie Rivers Network)

Michael Hawthorne, Contract Reporter      January 31, 2018

Seven years after Dynegy Inc. scrapped one of the last coal plants in downstate Illinois, environmental groups are accusing the company of failing to prevent toxic waste stored nearby from seeping into the state’s only National Scenic River.

Citing problems documented in the Houston-based company’s own internal reports, the nonprofit Prairie Rivers Network announced Wednesday that it plans to file suit, accusing Dynegy of repeatedly violating the federal Clean Water Act. The group said it decided to take more aggressive action because federal and state regulators have failed to address longstanding problems at the shuttered plant near Oakwood, about 25 miles east of Urbana.

Vermilion River pollution

Vermilion River pollution

Pictures taken by the group show orange- and purple-hued muck leaching from the banks of the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River as it meanders past the former Vermilion Power Station, a coal-fired facility built in the mid-1950s by Illinois Power and later purchased by Dynegy.

“These illegal discharges could not be more obvious,” said Jenny Cassel, an attorney for Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization representing the Prairie Rivers Network.

Before Dynegy closed the plant in 2011, the two companies deposited more than 3.3 million cubic yards of coal ash into pits next to the river — enough to fill the Empire State Building nearly 2½ times. Testing by Dynegy and the Prairie Rivers Network shows the multicolored waste oozing into the water contains dangerous levels of heavy metals found in coal ash, including arsenic, chromium, iron, lead and manganese.

“This toxic waste needs to be cleaned up,” said Andrew Rehn, water resources engineer for the network, based in Champaign. “We want to make sure that Dynegy can’t just walk away from its responsibility. We all have a right to a clean Vermilion River.”

Chicago Tribune Graphics

What’s left of the old power plant rises above the river about a mile downstream from a launch that draws thousands of paddlers, kayakers and tubers to the area every year. It also is along a 17-mile stretch of the river protected in 1989 under the federal National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, a designation based in part on the dozens of endangered and threatened species in the river and surrounding woods.

In 2012, Dynegy was cited by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency for water pollution violations at the site. The case is still open.

“We remain focused on working with state and federal regulatory agencies to provide long-term protection of the storage areas at Vermilion, the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River and groundwater resources,” the company said in a statement.

The company has suggested it could solve the problem in Vermilion County by capping the waste pits to prevent rain and snowmelt from washing coal ash into the water. But in November, Dynegy sent state regulators a report that estimated the normal flow of the Middle Fork is eroding the river banks by up to 3 feet a year, making it more likely the toxic slurry will be exposed below the proposed caps.

Because the power plant has been closed for so long, the ash pits are exempt from federal regulations enacted by the Obama administration in 2015. Opposition from Dynegy and other energy companies prompted the Trump administration last year to reconsider the safeguards; a separate proposal in Illinois also has been sidetracked.

Vermilion River pollutionThe environmental groups plan to sue Dynegy under a provision of the Clean Water Act that allows citizens to challenge companies about water pollution violations but requires a 60-day notice.

mhawthorne@chicagotribune.com     Twitter @scribeguy

Despite Trump’s Remark, There Is No War On Coal and It’s Definitely Not Clean

EcoWatch

Despite Trump’s Remark, There Is No War On Coal and It’s Definitely Not Clean

Lorraine Chow      January 31, 2018

President Donald Trump’s line, “We have ended the war on beautiful, clean coal” drew some of the biggest claps and cheers from Republican lawmakers at last night’s State of the Union address.

Energy Sec. Rick Perry, who wants to bail out uncompetitive coal plants, quickly bopped up with a standing ovation. Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke, who wants to open federal lands to mining, stood up shortly after.

You can watch their enthusiastic reaction here:

But there are a few problems with their boss’ remark. First, there is no war on coal. Market forces, the country’s glut of cheap natural gas, increased energy efficiency and renewable energy have all contributed to the coal industry’s decline.

While the Trump administration has aggressively pushed for fossil fuels and has rolled back a number of regulations, including the Clean Power Plan, to prop up domestic energy, the policies haven’t revived the coal sector. Vox noted that “mining jobs have crashed from a high of 800,000 workers in the 1920s to about 76,000 today.” Additionally, U.S. coal consumption fell by 2.4 percent in 2017—the lowest level in nearly four decades.

Secondly, there’s no such thing as clean coal. Coal is one of the world’s most polluting fossil fuels and its combustion is a major contributor to air pollution and climate change.

The Associated Press fact-checked Trump’s statement, and wrote:

“According to the Energy Department, more than 83 percent of all major air pollutants—sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, toxic mercury and dangerous soot particles—from power plants are from coal, even though coal makes up only 43 percent of the power generation. Power plants are the No. 1 source of those pollutants.’

Vox pointed out that Trump may simply be confusing “clean coal” with mines that wash or pretreat coal. Or perhaps the president is referring to carbon capture and storage, which collects and stores carbon from coal-powered plants’ emissions.

But the process is not only costly and more expensive than installing natural gas, wind or solar systems—many governments are also abandoning the trials that are needed to make it work. Meanwhile, Energy Sec. Perry’s most recent budget proposal slashed the clean-coal budget from more than $200 million to only $35 million.

Trump’s head-scratching comment was succinctly summarized by the New York Times’ columnist Nicolas Kristof:

“Trump says he has ended ‘the war on clean coal.’ I’d make three points: 1. Coal employment is in long-term secular decline. 2. Newspaper industry has lost more jobs in recent years than coal has. 3. Solar power employs 5 times as many people as coal—and it’s the future.”

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Oklahoma, America’s No. 2 wind producer, sours on the industry

Christian Science Monitor – Environment

Oklahoma, America’s No. 2 wind producer, sours on the industry

A massive state budget crisis, along with powerful oil and gas interests, has led the state to phase out key tax incentives for wind.

Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor

Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer     January 30, 2018

Garber, Oklahoma. First the wind came sweeping down the plain, then the dollars, and now the controversy.

With ever more spiky wind turbines cropping up across its open lands, Oklahoma has just become the No. 2 state in the country for wind energy production, the American Wind Energy Association announced Tuesday. That has been a boon for local communities, but it has also come at a price for the state, which pays tens of millions of dollars a year in subsidies for wind companies. As the industry grows, so does the price tag for wind incentives.

Now a new project – Wind Catcher, which is slated to be one of the largest wind farms in America – is facing stiff resistance and could be scrapped altogether.

The Wind Catcher case comes amid a pushback on wind incentives, galvanized by a state budget crisis and influential oil and gas interests. In the past year, Oklahoma has ended two key incentives that even wind proponents admitted were in some ways “too generous.”

“I’m hopeful that the current balance that we’ve struck between local taxation and making sure that we’re not penalizing a new technology – I’m hopeful that that balance stays in place,” says state Sen. AJ Griffin (R) of Guthrie, who says she encourages investment in wind “without giving away the farm.”

But some are pushing not only to remove all subsidies, but to levy a new tax on wind.

 Think you know the odd effects of global climate change? Take our quiz.

One of America’s largest wind farms

Under the whirring of turbines in Oklahoma’s Garfield County, Craig Schlichting hauls rock, agricultural lime, and grain for a living.

He’s not particularly keen on wind, but with the agricultural economy flagging, he sees the industry’s positive effect on his community of Garber, Okla. There’s a new blacktop road being laid down, and a smart new school building a mile away. Then there’s the wind companies’ payments to those with turbines on their land.

“It’s scuttlebutt, but the guys who have them say [the wind companies] pay $10,000 per year,” says Mr. Schlichting, standing in well-worn striped overalls. “In a poor state, it’s good money.”

The money coming into the county through such landowner payments is equivalent of the paying 194 employees at the county average wage – which would put it among the top-10 companies in the area, says Brent Kisling, executive director of the Enid Regional Development Alliance in Garfield County.

Now Enid stands to benefit from the $4.5 billion Wind Catcher project, which includes plans to build a 350-mile transmission line that would pass through the area, bringing supply-chain jobs, says Mr. Kisling.

Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO), which is investing $1.3 billion in the project, says Wind Catcher will save Oklahoma electric customers an estimated $2 billion over 25 years. That would be a relief for many in a state where summer electric bills often run $400 or more a month.

But there’s a problem.

$2 billion in savings? AG doesn’t think so.

PSO skipped a required competitive bidding process for building the transmission line. That was intentional: It wanted to finish the project before a federal tax credit expires at the end of 2020, says spokesman Stan Whiteford. Now it needs an exemption from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), which regulates public utilities.

PSO is asking the state to approve a rate hike to help finance its investment, and says that the added cost to consumers will be quickly canceled out by the savings of wind power. The OCC held hearings this month over whether to approve the exemption and the rate hike. A decision is expected in early spring.

One of the strongest opponents to the project is Attorney General Mike Hunter, whose job is to protect Oklahoma consumers.

However, Mr. Hunter disputes PSO’s savings estimate. He has experience with public utility cases, having previously worked for OCC, and says the Wind Catcher project is likely to cost consumers around $320 million.

He also underscores that PSO did not follow state rules, plain and simple, and must be opposed on that basis.

“My responsibility is to the ratepayers of the state of Oklahoma and that responsibility is a statutory responsibility, it’s consistent with my oath of office, and the case that we’re putting on is based on careful investigation, thoughtful review of evidence, and the law,” Hunter tells the Monitor. “And that is my sole motivation in this matter.”

What makes a level playing field?

Pro-wind critics argue that the opposition to Wind Catcher – and the wind industry in general – is being driven by influential oil and gas magnates like Harold Hamm, an ally of President Trump and former Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt.

“Certainly everybody in Oklahoma knows there’s been a Harold Hamm vs. wind fight for several years,” says Jeff Clark, head of the Texas-based Wind Coalition. “He’s not intervening so Wind Catcher gets built more competitively. He’s intervening because he wants to kill Wind Catcher.”

Mr. Hamm’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But he has argued that wind subsidies are no longer necessary in light of a federal tax credit extension for wind, and says the subsidies primarily benefit out-of-state companies whose power often goes to out-of-state customers.

Jonathan Small, president of the Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs in Oklahoma City and an early member of The Windfall Coalition spearheaded by Hamm, says it’s more about free-market economics than favoritism.

“I think the vast majority of lawmakers and citizens would say it has more to do with lack of a level playing field than not liking wind,” says Mr. Small, a former budget analyst for the Oklahoma Office of State Finance. He says the budget crunch focused scrutiny on wind incentives, and cites a statistic that each turbine costs taxpayers more than a teacher’s starting pay – a figure calculated by Wind Waste on an Apex wind installment in Oklahoma’s Kingfisher County. (Teachers are in such short supply that some Oklahoma school districts have gone to four-day weeks.)

But proponents of wind argue that oil and gas subsidies cost the state significantly more than wind subsidies, despite wind’s growth in recent years. A 2017 Oklahoma Policy Institute paper calculated that in fiscal year 2018 the state would forgo more than $500 million in revenue due to tax breaks for oil and gas.

“I think a lot of it is that [oil and gas entities] want to have their incentives, but they don’t think the wind should have the same incentives,” says Jan Kuehn of Kingfisher County, who has Apex wind turbines on her land as well as oil wells that still pay her royalties. “I think the wind people left the land and the roads in better shape than before they came – which is a great help because as most states, Oklahoma is strapped for money.”

In May 2016, Oklahoma’s secretary of finance announced that the state had needed to borrow $5 million from other funds that month to pay refunds due corporations, including $3.3 million in zero-emission credits to wind companies. The following year, the legislature ended that incentive for new wind farms, as well as a five-year property tax exemption.

Gov. Mary Fallin also proposed a production tax on wind to help close a nearly $1 billion budget gap for fiscal year 2018. Legislators are still pursuing that idea.

Kisling of the Enid Economic Development Alliance says what’s needed is a shift away from zero-sum thinking.

“We’ve spent too much time as a state [debating] who gets which slice of the pie,” he says. “We ought to spend more time figuring out how to increase the size of the pie.”

 Did this story deliver on patterns of thought?   Give us your feedback, please.

Will Shell Turn From Big Oil Into Big Energy?

EcoWatch

From Oil Change International

Will Shell Turn From Big Oil Into Big Energy?

By Andy Rowell       January 30, 2018

Shutterstock

On the surface, the good times are back for Big Oil. Later this week, Shell is expected to unveil its biggest profits in a decade since the oil price crash.

As the oil price recovers to over $65 a barrel last year, so do Shell’s fortunes, with reported earnings of nearly $16 billion.

The days of Shell being on the rocks—pummeled by a low oil price—seem over. So much so that the company even has Big Oil’s number one, Exxon, in its sights. Exxon’s reported earnings are expected to be slightly lower than Shell’s at a still significant $15.7 billion.

As Shell’s CEO Ben van Beurden recently said, “At the moment we are number two and we are closing in on number one. We almost have the tiger by the tail.”

As the two Big Oil companies battle it out for the number one spot, it is worth taking a step back and worth asking who will win the energy war not just in the next year, but in the decades ahead, which will be dominated by the upcoming renewable revolution, stranded assets and climate change. Many would argue that short term profits hide Big Oil’s longer term problems.

In the medium term, Shell is betting big on gas, despite the fact that environmentalists argue is it no solution to climate change. For example, you can read OCI’s report on gas here.

There are signs that the company is also taking some small steps into carbon disinvestment: As Reuters reported this week, “Royal Dutch Shell has spent over $400 million on a range of acquisitions in recent weeks, from solar power to electric car charging points, cranking up its drive to expand beyond its oil and gas business and reduce its carbon footprint.”

Before we all get too excited by this, there are two fundamental problems. One is that the investments are small change, as Reuters pointed out: “The scale of the buying spree pales in comparison to the Anglo-Dutch company’s $25 billion annual spending budget. But its first forays into the solar and retail power sectors for many years shows a growing urgency to develop cleaner energy businesses.”

In total, according to analysts, Big Oil has invested just over $3 billion on renewables acquisitions over the past five years, predominantly on solar. Again it is peanuts compared to the tens of billions the companies spend looking for oil.

And the other problem is the one we have just mentioned, gas. As Reuters noted, “The investments are not limited to renewables such as biofuels, solar and wind. Shell, as well as rivals such as BP, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, are betting on rising demand for gas, the least polluting fossil fuel, to power the expected surge in electric vehicles in the coming decades.”

Indeed, Shell may be betting on gas just at a time when the future of gas is in trouble. “The end of natural gas is near” is the title of an article this month on GreenBiz by Danny Kennedy from the California Clean Energy Fund. It states:

“Natural gas is no longer a contender or pretender, just a relic of the past, likely to fall as far and as fast as Old King Coal, and maybe faster … But I think it’s important to reflect that in 2017, for all its other problems in the clean-energy industry and our nation more broadly, the gas industry became, if not dead, at least a dead man walking.”

It is questions like these—is the market for gas in trouble?—that are supposed to be predicted by Shell’s long term planning unit. A really interesting article by Fortune looks at how this Big Oil dinosaur is desperate not to die out in the coming decades.

All the oil majors have scenario planning and Shell has been doing some serious head scratching. As Jeremy Bentham, Shell’s scenarios leader, said, “I am tasked with making sure that Shell isn’t a dodo.” So will Shell become extinct in the upcoming energy transition or dominate the new energy landscape?

The article argues that when Shell disinvested from most of its stakes in the tar sands last year, it was over long term fears over the oil price, rather than climate, that was the real concern.

The Shell scenarios team, Fortune noted, concluded that “global demand for oil might peak in as little as a decade—essentially tomorrow in an industry that plans in quarter-century increments.”

Hastened by the quickening uptake of renewables, Shell executives were alarmed by the dropping oil price:

“When the oil-demand peak came, Shell believed, petroleum prices might begin a slow slide, dipping too low to cover the costs of oil-sands production. This wouldn’t be just another oil-price cycle, a familiar roller coaster in which every down is followed by an up. It would be the start of a decades-long decline of the Oil Age itself—an uncharted world in which, in a phrase gaining currency at Shell, oil prices might be ‘lower forever.'”

As Fortune noted, “If Shell failed to prepare for this new energy landscape, it could wind up saddled with massive stranded assets: buried oil and gas that its shareholders paid billions to find, but that, because of softening demand, the company found itself unable to profitably drill and sell.”

Ben van Beurden, Shell’s CEO, told Fortune, “We won’t be sitting ducks. We are going to adapt.”

But adapt to what? “What is a challenge at the moment,” Beurden said, “is that we don’t know anymore where the future will go.” Beurden, Fortune said, is making strategic bets to transform “Big Oil into Big Energy.”

Finally it seems Big Oil has got the message. In response, many will argue it it too little, too late. Environmental groups have been telling the oil companies for decades of the need to disinvest from fossil fuels due to climate change, not just deny the problem of climate change.

But only now, when their very own corporate future is threatened by companies such as Tesla, have the oil companies finally decided to act. Will it be too late for them and us? Will Shell become a Dodo? Only time will tell.

100% Renewable Energy Worldwide Isn’t Just Possible—It’s Also More Cost-Effective http://100isnow.com/2BRerim  via @EcoWatch