E2-Wire

Officials warned cuts had harmed wildfire management as agencies prepare for a season with "above normal significant fire potential."

The group is under fire from the left for TV ads that back the Keystone XL pipeline and Arctic drilling.

A top biofuel trade group named a new communications director on Monday.

Dawn Schueller Moore joined the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) to lead its press shop, the organization announced Monday. 

Climate change and extreme weather disasters were the main drivers of human displacement worldwide last year, with Hurricane Sandy accounting for most of the forced migration in the United States, according to a report released Monday.

The devastating East Coast storm affected 24 states, forcing 776,000 people out of their homes, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said in its report. Wildfires in the West and Hurricane Isaac also contributed to displacement, the report noted.

“The USA was among the ten countries worldwide with the highest displacement levels in 2012. Months before Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Isaac displaced 60,000 people in August. … Widespread forest fires forced over 39,000 people to evacuate their homes,” the report said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron wants a global standard under which petroleum and mining companies will report their payments to governments, calling it a way to curb corruption in resource-rich nations.

Cameron, who is meeting with President Obama at the White House on Monday, called for the Group of Eight leading industrial nations to work on the effort at its June gathering in Ireland.

The prime minister, in a broader Wall Street Journal column backing free trade, said greater “transparency” must accompany more open global markets.

“[W]e must lift the veil of secrecy that too often lets corrupt corporations and officials in some countries run rings around the law. The G8 must move toward a global common standard for resource-extracting companies to report all payments to governments, and in turn for governments to report those revenues,” Cameron writes.

This week will likely bring a changing of the guard at the Energy Department, while Senate Democrats will also try again to advance a stalled nomination to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
 
The full Senate is slated to vote as early as Tuesday on Ernest Moniz, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist who President Obama nominated to run the Energy Department.
 
Moniz, who directs the MIT Energy Initiative, is expected to clear the Senate with bipartisan support. He would replace former Secretary Steven Chu, who left the Energy Department in April after announcing his decision to resign in early February.
 
Less certain is the path forward for Gina McCarthy, Obama’s choice to run the EPA.

The Los Angeles Times unwraps new research that concludes climate change could threaten many species.

“The study’s authors looked at 50,000 common species. They found that more than half the plants and about a third of the animals could lose about 50% of their range by 2080 if the world continues its current course of rising greenhouse gas emissions,” the Times reports. Read more...

Elon Musk, the co-founder of electric car maker Tesla Motors, has quit FWD.us, the political advocacy group co-founded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to promote immigration reform.

The Hill’s Jennifer Martinez has the full story of Musk and another tech executive bailing on the group over at our Hillicon Valley blog.

The departure comes after FWD.us enraged environmental and progressive groups by funding political ads that praised lawmakers for backing the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who has been in ill health, will make the trip to the Capitol for the vote.

The White House released a national strategy Friday for balancing energy- and minerals-development and conservation in the Arctic.

The document contains three policy aims — advancing national security interests, responsibly managing the Arctic ecosystem and bolstering international relationships. The White House will develop an implementation plan for the interagency effort in the coming months, a senior administration official said during a media call.

The Arctic issue is politically sensitive for President Obama, who is juggling demands from green groups to address climate change while also encountering pressure from Republicans and the oil-and-gas industry to ramp up drilling.