https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/21/what-senate-candidates-got-wrong-about-climate-policy-during-debates/

 

What Senate candidates got wrong about climate policy during this week's debates

 

Climate change has not emerged as a prominent topic in debates between candidates for the U.S. Senate, as concerns about inflation, abortion and other hot-button issues dominate the discussions.

But when Democratic and Republican candidates have mentioned climate and environmental issues, they have sometimes made inaccurate or misleading claims, according to experts who reviewed their comments.

Here's what candidates said about climate and environmental policy during the debates this week - and what they got right and wrong:

Ryan takes too much credit for EV investments, analyst says

In the heated second debate in Ohio's Senate race on Monday, Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan sought to take credit for recent investments in electric-vehicle and battery manufacturing plants in the state, saying they were spurred by the passage of the landmark climate bill that he supported.

"I was the one who made sure we had all of the investments in electric vehicles in the Inflation Reduction Act," Ryan said in the debate against Republican J.D. Vance. "Do you not see what's happening out at Lordstown?"

• Ryan appeared to be referring to an announcement from Taiwan'sFoxconn Technology Groupthat it would acquire an Ohio factory fromLordstown Motorsand take over production of the electric-truck start-up's Endurance pickup.
• But the$230 million dealwas reached in November 2021 - well beforeSen. Joe Manchin III(D-W.Va.) and Senate Majority LeaderCharles E. Schumer(D-N.Y.) unveiled asurprise agreementon theInflation Reduction Actin July.

"Politicians always love to take credit for everything that they might have been tangentially responsible for and deny responsibility for everything that they were definitely responsible for," said Sam Abuelsamid, head of e-mobility research at Guidehouse Insights. "In reality, the EV announcements that we're seeing right now have - for the most part - very little to do with the IRA."

Ryan's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Lee mischaracterizes EPA power plant rule, lawyer says

During a contentious debate Monday against independent challenger Evan McMullin, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) claimed that in the case West Virginia v. EPA , the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency had abused its powers to force the retirement of coal-fired power plants.

"In West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court said, 'Look, EPA has exercised that authority so broadly so as to shut down certain sources of electric power in this country,'" Lee said. 

• The claim thatPresident Barack Obama'sClean Power Planshut down power plants is false, because the rule never took effect, saidDavid Doniger, a senior adviser to theNRDC Action Fund, the political arm of theNatural Resources Defense Council
• The Supreme Courtstayedimplementation of the Clean Power Plan in 2016, but even without it, the electric sector achieved its 2030 target - cutting emissions by 32 percent - in 2019.

"Everyone on the right is pretending the rule was this gigantic hammer," Doniger said. "But new coal plants and many existing coal plants are not economically competitive, so power companies are replacing them with cleaner sources even without the rule."

A spokesman for Lee pushed back on this criticism and defended the senator's comments. 

• The spokesman said Lee was arguing that if the Clean Power Plan had taken effect, it would have "devastated" the fossil fuel industry, according to 2015congressional testimonyby the head ofAppalachian Power, a coal-reliant utility.
• "The intent of the rule was to force a transition from fossil fuels," he said.

Demings rightly links stronger storms to warming

In a fiery clash with Republican Sen. Marco Rubio on Tuesday, Democratic Rep. Val Demings warned that continued inaction on climate change would lead to more monster storms like Hurricane Ian, which pummeled Florida last month.

"Climate change is real," Demings said. "If we don't do something about it, then we're going to pay a terrible price for it: more intense storms like we've seen, as the waters in the ocean continue to warm up."

Unsurprisingly to readers of this newsletter, climate change is indeed real. And it's causing oceans to warm faster than ever, giving hurricanes more energy to release through crushing winds and pounding waves.

Meanwhile, Rubio did not take the opportunity to dispute the scientific consensus on global warming - a change from 2014, when he told ABC News that "I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it."

'The absence speaks louder than the words'

Overall, climate change came up less frequently in the debates than the economy, abortion and immigration. That's not surprising since climate change ranked below those other issues in a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, even as roughly half of registered voters said global warming was a priority.

At the same time, not a single Republican candidate rejected climate science on the debate stage this week - a sign that the GOP may be backing away from outright climate denial.

"What you're not seeing in these debates is anyone disputing the reality or seriousness of climate change itself," said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. 

"Sometimes the absence," he said, "speaks louder than the words."

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday announced plans to further cut emissions of climate super-pollutants widely used in air conditioning and refrigeration, The Washington Post's Allyson Chiu reports. 

The move marks the agency's latest step in its effort to phase down hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, which can be thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide in warming the planet. The proposed rule would set guidelines to lower the number of available allowances for the production and use of the chemicals to 40 percent below historical levels starting in 2024. 

"This is a really strong step forward," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a phone interview Thursday, adding that the Biden administration is seeking to make "significant inroads in staving off the climate crisis while boosting American manufacturing."

The proposed rule is the next part of a national HFC phase-down program authorized by the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020, which directed the EPA to slash the potent greenhouse gases by 85 percent by 2036.

The proposal comes about a month after the Senate ratified the Kigali Amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, a global treaty that calls for curbing the use and production of the chemicals, with broad bipartisan support.

Interior moves forward with oil and gas lease sales as directed by climate law

 

The Interior Department on Thursday announced the next steps for carrying out offshore oil and gas lease sales that were mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act.

 

Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a proposed notice of sale for Lease Sale 259 in the Gulf of Mexico and a final environmental impact statement for Lease Sale 258 in Alaska's Cook Inlet.

The auctions had previously been canceled as lawsuits wound through the courts. But the administration agreed to hold the lease sales as part of a compromise that won the support of Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) for the sweeping climate bill.

Lease Sale 259, which will be held in March, will focus on areas as far as 200 miles from the Louisiana coast and will be mostly limited to the Gulf's western and central regions. 

On the Hill

Energy lobbyists plan for a Republican House ahead of midterms

Lobbyists for the oil and gas industry, anticipating that Republicans could take control of the House in the midterm elections, are already strategizing to push back against the Biden administration's plans to bolster clean energy, Eric Lipton reports for the New York Times. 

The American Gas Association has played a leading role in the effort, with a lobbyist for the powerful trade group telling other gas industry executives at a conference last month that the organization is planning to partner with House Republicans to intensify oversight of the Energy Department.

The trade group hopes to undercut a $4.5 billion program that will provide rebates worth as much as $14,000 per household to low- and moderate-income families to install electric heat pumps, induction stoves and other devices that could replace gas-powered appliances.

Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he has discussed these issues with gas industry representatives, adding that he is eager to address their concerns in the new Congress.

Pressure points

EV supply chains have a human rights problem. Can tech fix it?

As electric carmakers struggle to build supply chains free of human rights and environmental violations, they are racing to gain a better understanding of the origins of their materials and who is being harmed by the way they are extracted and processed, The Post's Evan Halper reports. 

Automakers now face a greater financial risk if they don't track the origins of critical minerals used in electric-vehicle batteries: Some of the electric-vehicle tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act apply only to cars made from materials sourced in the United States or a handful of other nations. 

But as they scramble to gain control of their supply chains, car companies are finding out how much they don't know about them. They are learning that contractors who pledged to provide sustainable cobalt, for example, may be sneaking in sacks of the metal extracted with child labor, as detailed in lawsuits and a recent Labor Department report.

To fill the void between the mine and the auto assembly line, companies are hoping to rely on pioneering technologies such as "battery passports," which would reveal to consumers where the minerals came from, their carbon footprint, and whether human rights were protected by companies involved. Car manufacturers are also working with tracking firms that use digital forensics, QR codes and satellites to keep tabs on materials as they traverse the globe.