E2-Wire

Environmentalists praised retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens as a champion of environmental protection.

Stevens, who announced Friday he would retire this summer, wrote the majority opinion in the landmark case Massachusetts V. EPA. The decision granted federal regulators the authority to force greenhouse gas emissions reductions if the pollution posed a threat to human health and welfare.

“Justice Stevens was a resounding voice on behalf of the Constitution, the rule of law, including environmental protection laws, and the rights of citizens to bring legal challenges against corporations and federal agencies,” said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, a petitioner in the Mass. v EPA case. Read more...

A hearing next week on coal and climate change is likely to offer members of Congress the first chance to question industry executives about mine safety since at least 25 miners were killed in an explosion Monday.

Executives from Peabody Energy, Arch Coal and Rio Tinto are expected to testify before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming on Wednesday. Officials from Massey Energy, the operator of the mine where the blast occurred, are not expected to attend.

The principal focus will be on “coal’s role in a new energy age,” said spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder. But members are also expected to ask questions about the explosion on Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine, the deadliest in 25 years, and mine safety laws in general. 

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Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is seeking a meeting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates to discuss whether White House plans to allow expanded drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico would impair military training there.

Nelson, in a letter to Gates Thursday, said he wants to hear from Gates about whether the plan “poses a risky commercial intrusion into the last unfettered training range for our military.”

Nelson won provisions in a 2006 Gulf drilling law that created a no-drilling buffer generally extending 125 miles south of the Florida panhandle and 235 miles west of Tampa.

Rep. Bart Stupak’s (D-Mich.) decision to retire means the House will lose its most outspoken advocate of expanding regulation of electricity, natural gas and oil trading markets.

Stupak has long pushed to give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission a stronger hand to clamp down on market abuses and limit speculative energy trading by Wall Street banks and hedge funds.

“Bart Stupak was the point man in the House for restoring regulatory order to these out-of-control markets,” said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s energy program. “His leadership is going to be sorely missed.”

The man at the center of an effort to draft climate legislation that can pass the Senate took a swipe at the World Bank on Friday for approving a $3.75 billion loan to build a coal plant in South Africa.

“There are better ways to promote urgent energy access in the developing world without exacerbating the looming threat of catastrophic climate change which will ultimately hit Africa and the developing world the hardest,” Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said in a statement released Friday morning.

“Moving forward, the World Bank should be leading the way by leveraging its funding and broad expertise to promote new, low carbon footprint energy sources that mitigate climate change.”

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* Mine operator had “pattern of violations” but escaped stepped-up enforcement.

The New York Times leads with this report on the mine disaster in West Virginia: “The operator of the West Virginia mine that exploded on Monday, killing at least 25 people, was warned by federal officials just over two years ago that it could be cited for having a 'pattern of violations,' which would have allowed far stricter federal oversight of the mine. But the mine escaped the stepped-up enforcement even though it continued to amass violations, federal records show.”

The Mine Safety and Health Administration had warned Massey Energy in a 2007 letter that “the mine had received 204 violations that were deemed serious and significant over the previous two years, well above average,” according to the Times.

Massey implemented a plan to fix the problems and the violations went down, but the incidents rose again last year, according to the newspaper.

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The World Bank on Thursday approved a $3.75B loan to help build a massive coal-fired power plant in South Africa.

President Obama is requiring an initial report from federal mine safety officials next week on the explosion at a West Virginia coal mine Monday that killed at least 25 workers, the White House announced Thursday.

The explosion at Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Branch mine – a mine that federal regulators have cited for numerous safety violations – is the nation’s worst mining accident in over two decades.

Obama has tasked the officials with producing an initial assessment on the causes of the accident and “what actions could prevent further tragedies in this industry,” the White House said.

States’ rights are taking center stage as the Senate prepares to tackle climate change.

State and local air pollution regulators sent a letter Thursday to the architects of the upcoming Senate climate bill that warns against curtailing state programs to cut greenhouse gases.

"While any federal program should be sufficiently stringent to substantially reduce GHG emissions, federal legislation should not preempt state or local governments from taking more stringent actions, especially in light of the past leadership and innovation demonstrated by state and local officials in reducing GHG emissions," states the letter from the National Association of Clean Air Agencies.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers plans to introduce legislation to set American transportation on a new course, away from the internal combustion engine and toward battery-powered cars and small trucks.

David Crane, CEO of NRG Energy, an electric utility, told reporters the bill would adopt components of a blueprint the business-backed Electrification Coalition developed to solve a “chicken and egg” problem that’s kept drivers dependent on oil, often from not so friendly places. Customers won’t buy electric vehicles if there is not infrastructure to support them, and the infrastructure won’t be built if there are few vehicles to support.

The coalition, which includes NRG, Cisco Systems, Nissan Motor Company and FedEx, wants $120 billion in government support over eight years to boost the electric car industry, which always seems to be something that is just around the corner.