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LOUISIANA GOVERNOR WANTS POWER CUSTOMERS TO REAP REWARDS OF TAX CUT: Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, is urging that the Trump corporate tax cuts turn into savings for electricity users.

Ahead of his Friday budget meetings, Edwards sent a letter to the state’s utility regulators to make sure the benefits of the president’s tax bill are passed onto consumers.

The state’s public service commission “sets utility rates based on a number of factors, including federal income tax rates,” the governor told the commission. “Given the reduction in federal corporate income tax rates from 35 percent to 21 percent in the new tax law, some Louisiana utility rates may merit a reduction.”

Edwards said he based his request on an announcement made by Virginia utility company Dominion Energy last week. The company said it would cut customer rates by an average of 5 percent because of the new tax law.

Meanwhile, Dominion’s neighbor, Pepco, which serves the Washington area, is looking for regulators to bill its customers more.

Pepco, which was recently acquired by one of the largest utilities in the country, Exelon, asked Maryland utility regulators to approve a $41 million rate increase to pay for grid upgrades. It is not clear if the Maryland regulators will seek to move the utility in the direction of Dominion and urge it to consider the tax cuts it received from Trump’s bill instead.

Utility regulators are bound to keep energy prices low for consumers.

Pepco is also asking D.C. regulators to increase its rates for consumers in the nation’s capital.

STEYER WON’T RUN, WILL FIGHT WITH MONEY: Climate change activist Tom Steyer announced Monday morning he will be injecting $30 million to mobilize young voters during the 2018 mid-term races.

"I’m not going to run for office in 2018. That’s not where I can make the biggest difference,” he said.

Speculation was high that Steyer would run for office, perhaps the Senate. But that doesn’t seem to be in the cards — for now. Some still think he may be planning a bid for the 2020 presidential race.

The money will be focused on organizing young voters. “The work will focus primarily on Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, California, Pennsylvania, Iowa, New Hampshire and Arizona,” according to a statement.

Specifically, the funds will target eight Senate races, nine gubernatorial races, and more than 30 congressional districts “in an effort to flip Congress back to Democratic control.”

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SUPREME COURT WON’T HEAR CASE FOR COAL JOBS: The high court on Monday refused to hear a case brought by Trump supporter and coal magnate Bob Murray of Murray Energy.

Murray had petitioned the Supreme Court last year to take up a lower court ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency did not need to report how its regulations would affect coal jobs and the industry.

Monday’s decision means the 4th Circuit Court’s decision stands.

GREENS TO UNLEASH THE ‘BERN’ ON TRUMP: Climate change activist Bill McKibben will bring out former presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders to counter President Trump’s State of the Union address in the runup to 2018 congressional races.

The Vermont independent will join McKibben for the launch of the Fossil Free U.S. campaign as an “immediate rebuke” of Trump’s climate policies on Jan. 31, the day after the State of the Union address.

A tough year for greens: Last year “was tough,” McKibben said in previewing the campaign. He said climate activists “resisted, but we lost a lot of ground.” In the new year, “we take that ground back, and we'll do it with this Fossil Free campaign that helps unite progressive environmentalists to move us off oil and coal and gas and on to a world that works.” McKibben’s group, 350.org, is the forerunner of the anti-fossil fuel Keep It in the Ground movement.

SUPREME COURT WADES INTO WATER FIGHTS: The Supreme Court kicks off its new session Monday by hearing oral arguments in water use battles between Texas, Colorado and New Mexico over the Rio Grande, and Georgia and Florida over the Apalachicola River.

Water for the taking: In the Rio Grande case, Texas filed a lawsuit 2014 claiming New Mexico violated the Rio Grande Compact of 1938 that divided water rights among the states in the dispute. Texas says New Mexico allowed diversions of the river’s surface water and the pumping of groundwater, allowing it to take water reserved for Texas. All three states in the dispute rely on the river. Oyster industry at risk? In the Apalachicola River case, Florida argues that an increase in water consumption by Georgia since the 1970s is “effectively strangling the Apalachicola region.” The Army Corps of Engineers distributes the water in the river basin into a split of 74 percent for Georgia, 15 percent for Alabama and 11 percent for Florida. Florida wants a water-use cap imposed on Georgia to help the river and Apalachicola Bay, an estuary that once produced 90 percent of Florida’s oysters. Georgia counters that Florida is asking for "dramatic and costly reductions in Georgia's upstream water use — cuts that threaten the water supply of 5 million people in metropolitan Atlanta and risk crippling a multibillion-dollar agricultural sector in southwest Georgia."

TRUMP EPA COUNTING CARBON EMISSIONS AMID DEEP FREEZE: The EPA will begin collecting greenhouse gas emissions data for 2018 early next month, as coal-fired power plants that kept the heaters humming during the deep freeze likely will mean an increase in this year's carbon dioxide output.

The agency houses the greenhouse gas reporting program, which collects data from power plants and all other major emitters of carbon dioxide.

The EPA finalized rules in 2009 that require the mandatory reporting of greenhouse gases from power plants, refineries, and other sources that emit 25,000 metric tons, or more, of carbon dioxide per year in the U.S.

Budget cuts: However, it has not been clear if the pressure would be on this year to keep the data coming, especially with the Trump administration seeking to repeal climate regulations and presidential and Republican budgets targeting the program for cuts. Still in the business: Nevertheless, an EPA official confirmed the agency's plans to begin collecting the data beginning near the end of February, with a hard deadline for all data to be submitted by March 31.

COAL UTILITY WON’T FORGO EMISSIONS COUNTING IF TRUMP DECIDES TO STOP: Ohio-based American Electric Power, one of the largest coal-fired utilities in the country, said it will continue reporting its emissions no matter what the EPA does with the program. AEP's coal plants provided electricity during the cold snap to the wholesale power market that supports the eastern part of the country.

"Beyond required reporting, we have been reporting our GHG emissions for many years as part of our Corporate Accounting Reporting and don’t see that changing given the continued interest from our investors and our customers in climate issues and actions we are taking to reduce our emissions," said Melissa McHenry, spokeswoman for the company.

FLORIDA SHUTS DOWN LARGEST COAL PLANT: Florida Power and Light Co. announced Monday that it will close one of Florida's largest coal-fired power plants and replace it with more than 1 million solar panels across four new solar power plants.

Cost savings: The company said its continued move away from older coal plants has kept Florida’s energy prices some of the lowest in the nation. Its typical residential customers pay 25 percent less than the U.S. average, the company said. ‘Truth’ in ‘progress’: "The truth is progress like this doesn't happen by accident,” said Eric Silagy, president and CEO. “It's because of our culture of responsible innovation and an unwavering commitment to customers that we're able to deliver cleaner, more reliable energy while keeping electric bills among the lowest in the country."

TRUMP’S ROLLBACK OF OFFSHORE DRILLING RULES SPLITS GULF STATES: Gulf states are split over whether to support or oppose the Trump administration’s proposed repeal of offshore drilling safety rules established after the historic 2010 BP oil disaster.

‘Recipe for disaster’: On one side is Florida, whose congressional delegation and Republican Gov. Rick Scott have come out in opposition to both the rule rollback and the massive proposed expansion of offshore drilling in federal waters. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., is finalizing a letter opposing the offshore safety rule rollbacks, which he will begin circulating this week. “Have we forgotten the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe so soon?” Buchanan said in a statement, referring to the explosion of the oil rig in the Gulf Coast in 2010 that killed 11 people and led to one of the worst oil spills and environmental disasters in U.S. history. “This is a recipe for disaster,” he added. “It would be a huge mistake to weaken these safety regulations and risk not only lives but catastrophic consequences to our environment.”

Florida united: Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., meanwhile, announced on the Senate floor that he will seek to block Trump’s rollback of the safety rules, using the Congressional Review Act.

Safety blow? Among the proposed changes, the Interior Department would eliminate a provision requiring third-party inspectors of certain safety equipment — such as a blowout preventer device — be certified by its safety bureau. The blowout preventer device broke at the bottom of the sea in the Deepwater Horizon incident, spewing almost 4 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. ‘Energy dominance’ first: But on the other side of the Gulf, in refinery-rich Louisiana, the attitude toward Trump’s rollback is the exact opposite. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., supports the administration’s goal of achieving “energy dominance” without sacrificing safety, which would require some changes to the Obama administration’s rules pertaining to offshore energy production, according to his office. Scalise sees the rules as specifically designed to make it harder, and not necessarily safer, to drill in the Gulf, his office told the Washington Examiner.

OFFICIAL WHO HELPED REDSKINS OWNER CHOP DOWN TREES TO BE NAMED PARK SERVICE DEPUTY DIRECTOR: A former National Park Service employee who helped Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder cut down trees to improve the view at his Maryland property along the Potomac River is set to be named the agency’s deputy director.

The Trump administration on Monday will name P. Daniel Smith as its replacement for acting National Parks director Mike Reynolds, according to internal Interior Department communications first reported by National Parks Traveler and confirmed by the Washington Post.

Special ‘tree’-tment?: Smith intervened in a 2004 case to help Snyder chop down more than 130 trees on a Park Service-protected easement between his Potomac property and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, according to a report by the Interior Department inspector general's office. Smith pressured lower-level Park Service officials to approve the deal. The decision on Snyder’s request should have been made by career park biologists and horticulturists, the report said. Smith’s job in the Trump administration would not require Senate confirmation

BISHOP STRIKES BACK AT PATAGONIA: House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop criticized the founder of clothing retailer Patagonia Friday for refusing to testify before the panel about the company’s opposition to President Trump’s rollback of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah.

Living in a ‘bubble’: “In my 15 years of congressional service I have found most people jump at the opportunity to share their views before Congress – at least those who are confident their positions can survive public scrutiny,” the Utah Republican said in a letter to Yvon Chouinard. “Admittedly, your company press releases, letters, and op-eds outline your positions on various public land issues. They reveal an approach to corporate activism derived from within a limited ideological bubble. ‘Disingenuous’ invite: Chouinard, in a biting letter to the Bishop last month, called the invite to testify “disingenuous” and pointless and accused the Natural Resources Committee of acting in cahoots with an “Orwellian government” at the behest of the energy industry.

RUNDOWN

Washington Post Interior Department strikes land swap deal with Alaskan village for road through national wildlife refuge

New York Times In New York, drawing flood maps in response to climate change is a ‘game of inches’

Wall Street Journal Iranian oil tanker at risk of exploding and sinking, Chinese officials say

Bloomberg Big oil finds hurdles buried in Trump’s ‘America-first’ tax plan

Associated Press Superfund work touted by Trump EPA was completed years ago

Wall Street Journal China’s electric car market has grown up

Calendar

MONDAY, JAN. 8

House returns from winter break

All day, Walter E. Washington Convention Center. The Transportation Research Board holds its 97th Annual Meeting through Jan. 11, where the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is planning to issue a new report on how roads contribute to climate change. A number of sessions and workshops will focus on the spotlight theme for the 2018 meeting: “Transportation: Moving the Economy of the Future.”

trb.org/AnnualMeeting/AnnualMeeting.aspx

TUESDAY, JAN. 9

Noon, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard delivers the 2018 “State of American Energy” event, previewing the U.S. oil and natural gas industry’s top priorities for the year ahead.

api.org

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 10

9 a.m., 10 G St. NE, James A. Harmon Conference Center. The World Resources Institute holds a discussion on "the big stories in the environment and international development in the coming year," including global trends and emerging issues related to economics, climate change, energy markets, forests, water and security issues.

wri.org/events/2018/01/stories-watch-2018