November, 01 2018, 12:00am EDT
WASHINGTON
PJM Interconnection LLC, America's largest regional transmission organization, released a study today that found there was "no imminent threat" to the reliability of their electricity marketplace. The study is considered by many to be a blow to the Trump administration's efforts to justify a nationwide coal plant bailout that will force electricity customers and taxpayers to pay tens of billions of dollars to prop up dirty, uneconomic power plants. For the study, PJM did a stress test on its grid and found that even accounting for all the announced retirements of coal fired and nuclear power plants over the next five years, the system would remain reliable despite possible extreme winter weather conditions and disruptions of fracked gas pipeline supply.
In response, Mary Anne Hitt, Senior Director of Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, released the following statement:
"PJM's stress test study is further evidence that the Trump administration's efforts to force taxpayers and electricity customers to pay tens of billions of dollars to bail out old, uneconomic coal plants are nothing more than political graft for billionaire coal plant executives who helped elect him. Since Donald Trump was elected in 2016, more than 40 coal plants have retired and not one of them caused any major electricity disruptions.
"The Trump administration's talk of reliability issues with coal plant retirements has nothing to do with keeping the market economic and resilient, and everything to do with pay-to-play politics. Utilities and their regulators should instead be removing the barriers to development of low-cost, no-regrets measures that will actually improve the resilience of our electric system, such as improved transmission and distribution systems, fuel-free wind and solar, demand response, and distributed generation."
The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. We amplify the power of our 3.8 million members and supporters to defend everyone's right to a healthy world.
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FTC Probing 'Blockbuster' Exxon-Pioneer Merger
"The FTC is right to investigate Exxon's acquisition of Pioneer, which could raise prices at the pump and is aimed at keeping the U.S. reliant on fossil fuels," said one campaigner.
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Amid outrage from climate campaigners and senators, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is investigating fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil's proposed takeover of Pioneer Natural Resources, a regulatory filing revealed Tuesday.
Pioneer disclosed the FTC's request for more information about the pending merger, which Exxon announced in October.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Tuesday: "Last month, I and 22 other senators urged the FTC to investigate Exxon's $60 billion proposed blockbuster merger with Pioneer. And today—they heeded my warning."
"Americans care a great deal about gas prices," Schumer stressed, "and if this merger were to go through it would most certainly raise gas prices for families across the country."
"This merger has all the hallmarks of harmful, anticompetitive effects. The FTC is right to investigate this merger to see if it would lead to higher gas prices or less competition," he added. "I look forward to following this investigation closely, and will encourage the FTC to block the deal if they find any antitrust laws are being violated."
Alex Witt of Climate Power, an advocacy group founded by the Center for American Progress (CAP) Action Fund, League of Conservation Voters, and Sierra Club, also welcomed the FTC's inquiry in comments to The Associated Press.
"Exxon publicly promised to reduce emissions, yet subsequently spent $60 billion acquiring another fossil fuel company—doubling down on their commitment to oil and gas and putting profits over people," Witt said. "The FTC is right to investigate Exxon's acquisition of Pioneer, which could raise prices at the pump and is aimed at keeping the U.S. reliant on fossil fuels."
A CAP report highlighted Tuesday that in hopes of continuing to profit off of the destruction of the planet, the fossil fuel industry is "undermining democratic functions to stem the tide of climate action" around the world.
That report and the heightened scrutiny of the possible merger come during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), where attendees are considering scientists' warnings that fossil fuels must be rapidly phased out to prevent more devastating global heating.
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As more people around the world demand an end to the fossil fuel era in the face of a worsening planetary emergency, Big Oil is "undermining democratic functions to stem the tide of climate action," a report published Tuesday revealed.
"Through a wide array of tactics, the multinational $4 trillion fossil fuel industry has not only corrupted citizens' understanding of the climate crisis but also contributed to the erosion of democracy around the world," the Center for American Progress (CAP) said in a new analysis.
CAP's Chris Martinez, Laura Kilbury, and Joel Martinez examined "what these tactics look like in practice and how they work against democratic systems to stifle climate action."
According to the authors, the three main democracy-destroying tactics are:
- Polluting democratic societies' information ecosystems with deception and false climate solutions;
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- Directly undermining democratic rights and freedoms.
The fossil fuel industry is "stifling democratic rights through lawsuits, anti-protest laws, and voter suppression," the report states. Meanwhile, Big Oil greenwashes its harmful practices through direct advertising and via lobby groups like the American Petroleum Institute, which "regularly publicizes its member companies' investments in renewable energy and carbon reduction technologies."
"On closer inspection, however, industry's declared efforts to fight climate change fall woefully short, with oil and gas companies often devoting more attention to creating the appearance of working on climate solutions than actually developing them," the analysis contends.
Big Oil also uses the tactic of "astroturfing," or creating the appearance of grassroots support for policies and practices that are beneficial to the industry but harm the climate by perpetuating the fossil fuel era.
"The oil and gas industry's strategy is clear: Manipulate the levers of power to obstruct any climate policies that may reduce the world's reliance on fossil fuels," Martinez, CAP's associate director for domestic climate, said in a statement. "If left unchecked, these tactics stifle democratic rights, making governments more responsive to corporations than their own citizens."
The CAP analysis comes as a record 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists flood the floors of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP28, in Dubai, peddling influence and false climate solutions like so-called "abated" emissions, biofuels, and hydrogen.
"In the case of the [United Arab Emirates'] COP28 presidency, the industry capture of these spaces is complete, with a state-backed fossil fuel company threatening to interfere with multilateral climate progress at the highest and most consequential level," the report states, referring to summit president Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who is also the CEO of the UAE's national oil firm—and who has reportedly been using the run-up to the conference to pursue new fossil fuel deals.
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As Israel continued to wage what critics are calling a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, just 13 U.S. House Democrats and one Republican on Tuesday voted against a GOP resolution that conflates anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
House Resolution 894 passed with support from 95 Democrats and 216 Republicans, including its sponsors, Reps. David Kustoff (Tenn.) and Max Miller (Ohio), who are both Jewish. Almost as many Democrats—92—voted present.
The resolution, which embraces the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's controversial working definition of antisemitism, was widely condemned by progressive and Jewish groups this week ahead of the vote.
Republican Congressman Thomas Massie (Ky.) joined the 13 Democrats who opposed H.Res. 894: Reps. Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Gerry Connolly (Va.), Jesús "Chuy" GarcÃa (Ill.), Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.).
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According to The Hill, Bowman said after the vote that while he "strongly condemn[s] antisemitism and hate in all of its forms," he voted against H.Res. 894 because "it fuels division and violence, conflates criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism, and ignores one of the greatest threats to the Jewish community, white nationalism."
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