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Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! In today’s edition, we have an exclusive on a White House announcement about more than 650 hospitals that have agreed to halve their emissions by 2030. Learn more below. But first:
Environmental lawyers will be frantically pushing the update button at 10 a.m. today
Sara Colangelo felt her stomach twist and grabbed a bottle of Tums, as she had done at 10 a.m. many other days this month.
As he put a chalk board in his mouth, Colangelo refreshed the Supreme Court website and SCOTUSblog once again, waiting for the words “West Virginia v. EPA” to materialize on the screen.
But the words did not appear. Instead, an even higher number appeared on his Garmin watch’s heart rate monitor.
“Every morning at 10 a.m., my anxiety increases,” Colangelo, who heads the Environmental Law and Justice Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center, told The Climate 202. “With each day of delay, my fears about this case are growing. “
Like Colangelo, environmental lawyers and climate activists across the country have prepared for the Supreme Court ruling in West Virginia vs. United States. EPAa challenge to the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector.
After a few months of waiting, the court is expected to decide the case this morning, rounding off an extraordinary warrant that saw explosive sentences on guns and abortion.
The Conservative majority could destroy the federal government’s ability to cope with carbon emissions from power plants, one of the main contributors to climate change. And the court’s delay in resolving the case has had a major psychological impact.
“Everyone around this office has been distressed about their computer at 10 a.m. doing an update over and over again at 10 minutes to see what our destiny will be,” said Jack Lienke, director of regulatory policy at the New Institute of Policy Integrity. York University School of Law told The Climate 202.
“I just don’t understand why it’s done this way, in which opinions are broadcast every 10 minutes,” he added. “It creates a lot of suspense.”
Jason Rylander, a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, said he has approved his schedule at 10 a.m. most days of Supreme Court opinion, only to realize he will have to wait longer to take a decision.
“As Tom Petty said, waiting is the hardest part,” Rylander said.
While the expected ruling has caused anxiety for some, it has sparked great anticipation for West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R), who led the legal challenge along with other Republican Attorneys General. and coal companies.
“This has been done for years,” Mangalonzo told The Climate 202, referring to the decades-long search for the conservative legal movement to limit the power of administrative agencies.
“They’re saving the best for the end,” he added.
Lienke said the delay in deciding the case could indicate that the court will dismiss it as improvised – or DIG in legal language – as the judges did with an immigration case this month.
“I hope it’s an indication that the judges who voted to hear this case in the first place are having some remorse from the buyer,” he said.
But other environmental lawyers said the scenario seems unlikely. They said it was obvious in the February oral arguments that at least five Conservative judges support limiting the EPA’s authority to reduce carbon pollution from power plants in accordance with section 111 of the Air Act. net.
“I hope they CAVIN, but I’m not counting on it,” Harvard Law School professor Jody Freeman said in an email.
The biggest question, jurists said, is whether the court issues a limited decision or a broad decision with potentially devastating consequences for the ability of other federal agencies to address urgent social issues.
A limited decision would be based on the plain language of the Clean Air Act, which directs the EPA to determine the “best emission reduction system” for power plants. A broad decision could invoke the doctrine of the main issues, which says federal agencies need explicit authorization from Congress to decide issues of “great economic and political importance.”
Whatever the outcome, Colangelo, and his heart rate monitor, will be ready.
“The bet,” he said, “couldn’t be higher.”
Exclusive: More than 650 hospitals are committed to halving emissions by 2030
The White House will announce today that 61 of the largest hospital and health care companies in the country have joined the Climate Commitment of the Health Sector, promising to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, according to details shared exclusively with The Climate 202.
The new commitment covers more than 650 hospitals and thousands of providers across the country. It includes two of the five largest private health and hospital systems in the United States, Ascension and CommonSpirit Health.
The measure is intended to help advance President Biden’s goal of achieving zero net emissions by 2050, as the healthcare industry accounts for about 8.5 percent of total U.S. emissions. It occurs when climate change is increasingly recognized as a public health problem, with research showing that global warming is affecting public health through more frequent and intense weather disasters, extreme heat and security threats. food and water.
“In his first day in office, President Biden tasked us with mobilizing climate ambition and major emission reductions in each and every sector of our economy,” the White House national climate adviser said. , Gina McCarthy, in a statement. “Today is another milestone in realizing his vision, aligning the largest health care companies and hospitals in the United States with the president’s bold goal of halving emissions by 2030.”
Organizations, including public hospitals, health centers, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers and suppliers of medical devices, will also develop climate resilience plans for their facilities, including plans to support people or communities most vulnerable to the effects of change. climate.
Manchin seeks climate and energy concessions as reconciliation talks continue
Senator Joe Manchin III (DW.Va.) is seeking concessions from Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (DN.Y.) on the contested climate and energy provisions in the Senate budget reconciliation package. President Biden as Democrats rush to reach an agreement on the spending bill before the August recess, according to people familiar with the talks, Laura Davison, Erik Wasson and Ari Natter told Bloomberg News.
Manchin wants to make the package friendlier with fossil fuels by increasing drilling in the western Gulf of Mexico and including a tax credit for carbon capture technology, which environmentalists say extends the life of coal-fired power plants and is not an efficient option to prevent catastrophic warming. said the people.
Manchin has also expressed interest in extending the duration of a tax deduction for blue hydrogen, or a kind of hydrogen produced from natural gas. And lawmakers have been struggling with the value and eligibility requirements for the federal tax credit for electric vehicles.
A package for methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas, is expected to be included in the package, Senate Environment and Public Works Senate President Thomas R. Carper (D-Del. ).
Climate groups are calling on the Biden administration for new sales of oil and gas leases
A coalition of environmental groups on Wednesday sued the Biden administration for resuming oil and gas lease sales on federal lands in four Western states, Zack Budryk told The Hill.
According to the lawsuit, lease sales in Montana, Nevada, North Dakota and Utah violate the Federal Land Management and Policy Act, which requires the Department of the Interior to prevent “unnecessary or undue degradation” of leases. public lands. Plaintiffs include the Western Environmental Law Center, WildEarth Guardians and Sierra Club.
“The overwhelming scientific evidence shows us that burning fossil fuels from existing leases on federal land is incompatible with a habitable climate,” Melissa Hornbein, a senior lawyer at the Western Environmental Law Center, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, another coalition of environmental groups is suing Home Secretary Deb Haaland and the Land Management Office in an attempt to stop drilling plans in Wyoming, the site of the largest planned lease sale with 120,000 acres of public land being offered to oil and gas companies, Ella Nilsen reports for CNN.
The groups argue that the federal government did not consider the environmental consequences of the sale, including the effects on groundwater, wildlife, and emissions from global warming. The environmental law firm Earthjustice filed the complaint on behalf of the Wilderness Society and Friends of the Earth.
The heat wave drowns the Japanese electricity grid
Some 37 million people living near Tokyo have been told to save electricity as one of the most severe heat waves in Japan has strained the electricity grid, Karina Tsui, Julia Mio Inuma and Ian Livingston report. and The Washington Post.
For the first time, the Japanese government has asked businesses and residences to reduce energy consumption between 3pm and 6pm on certain days. The guide has caused some people to turn off freezers and air conditioners, while others have been advised to work in the dark.
Energy demand in the country is at its peak since 2011 in the midst of the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry described the discrepancy between supply and demand of “hard.” Japan has been struggling with power outages since March, when an earthquake in the northeast shut down some of the country’s nuclear power plants.