fossil fuels

Although EPA administrator Scott Pruitt favors elimination of tax credits for wind and solar power, he isn't calling the shots for the administration, said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the No. 2 state in wind-generated electricity. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin "will be in the room when these agreements are made," said Grassley, a member of the tax-writing Finance Committee, and Mnuchin backs an ongoing phase-down of wind and solar tax credits."

The Advanced Biofuels Business Council told the Senate Environment Committee that year-round sales of E15 would widen the market for cellulosic ethanol, made from gasses and woody plants, reported DTN. At present, E15, a 15 percent mix of ethanol and gasoline, cannot be sold during the summer because of air pollution rules.

California, New Mexico, New York and Washington State have sued the Interior Department and the Bureau of Land Management in an attempt to stop new coal leases on public lands.

President Trump officially rolled back Obama’s Clean Power Plan, signing a document called the “Energy Independence” executive order, says The New York Times. Even though many economists have said that the rise in demand for natural gas — and not climate change regulations — are to blame for a depressed coal market, Trump promised his order would put the miners back to work.

President Trump will sign an executive order this week to undo President Obama’s 2015 clean-power plan, EPA secretary Scott Pruitt revealed in an interview with ABC’s This Week. The plan was designed to reduce carbon emissions in the U.S. by 30 percent from 2005 levels before 2030, in part by targeting carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The U.S. Energy Department says it won’t provide President-elect Trump’s Energy Department transition team with a list of department employees involved with climate science or the society memberships of lab workers, says Reuters.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who filed suit to block the Waters of the United States rule and who challenged the Obama administration on climate change, is President-elect Donald Trump's choice to run the EPA. Before the transition team circulated word of the choice, Jason Miller, communications director for the transition, said Pruitt "led Oklahoma's legal challenges to the EPA, Obamacare, executive actions on illegal immigration, Dodd-Frank and President Obama's repeated attempts to bypass Congress."