PowerPost Analysis

The Energy 202: Trump took a long break this December. His environmental deputies did not.

By Dino Grandoni January 2 at 8:39 AM

THE LIGHTBULB

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But less conspicuously but more consequently, the gears within the administration, which have spent much of 2017 unwinding former President Barack Obama's energy and environmental policies, were also humming away over the holidays.

Trump officials within the Interior Department were particularly busy over the break.

• On Dec. 29, the last business day of 2017, Interior rescinded a 2015 Obama administration rule that would have tightened standards for well construction and wastewater management for hydraulic fracturing and required the disclosure of the chemicals contained in fracking fluids. The agency rescinded the rule it said would save “up to $9,690 per well or approximately $14 million to $34 million per year” in industry compliance costs.

• Also that day, another office within Interior, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, published new regulations rewriting rules regarding devices used during offshore oil production that were put in place after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. Among the rules tossed is one requiring that safety and pollution prevention equipment be inspected by independent auditors — an idea born out of the bipartisan presidential commission that investigated the oil spill.

• Shortly before Christmas, Interior moved to renew leases for copper and nickel mines that are on the border of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and that are owned by a billionaire who rents a home to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in Washington. Unber Obama, U.S. Forest Service had decided not to renew the leases while federal officials launched a formal review of the operation’s environmental impact.

• Finally, there was one legal decision that, for wildlife activists, was for the birds: Interior’s principal deputy solicitor wrote to other department employees that the Trump administration would no longer prosecute oil and gas, wind, and solar operators for accidentally killing birds under the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Over the years, the federal government has used the law to impose large fines after environmental disasters — including, again, the BP oil spill.

The takeaway: the Trump administration isn't done with its wholesale rolling back of environmental and energy policy as we head into the administration's second year.
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Energy & environmental reporter for @washingtonpost and newsletter writer for @PowerPost. Follow @dino_grandoni