A House panel approved a bill on Wednesday implementing drastic spending cuts for the EPA along with provisions blocking its rule-making. “The House Interior and Environment appropriations bill would cut EPA funding by $718 million, or 9 percent, next year and block a handful of environmental rules the agency is looking to put out this summer. Democrats on a House Appropriations subcommittee said they wouldn’t support the bill or deep cuts to the EPA, which has sustained a 20 percent decrease in funding since Republicans took the House in 2011.
“We are going backwards and the consequences will be felt in communities all across the country,” Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), the ranking member of the subcommittee, said at a Wednesday hearing.
The bill also blocks EPA rule-making on water oversight and greenhouse gas emissions at power plants, two key planks in President Obama’s environment agenda.” [The Hill]
PJM Interconnection yesterday won approval by U.S. regulators for a plan to increase the reliability of power plants in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the surging prices from the 2014 winter. “Shares of power producers jumped. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted 4-1 to approve the “pay-for-performance” proposal from PJM, which runs the 13-state grid from the mid-Atlantic to the Midwest, with Chairman Norman Bay dissenting.
Under the plan, generators that promise to have capacity available during peak-demand periods will receive higher payouts than other plants and will, for the first time, be penalized for failing to meet those commitments.” [Bloomberg]
Jay Faison, a Republican and successful businessman from North Carolina, has invested $175 million in an effort to focus attention on clean energy, with the hope of getting conservatives to change their minds on climate change. “Founder of SnapAV, an audio-visual equipment company that was recently acquired by investment firm General Atlantic. It’s the third business that Faison launched and sold — his bio calls him a “serial entrepreneur.”
But now he’s moving into a different game — with $165 million to endow a foundation, ClearPath, focused on clean energy and climate change, and another $10 million dedicated to a 501c4 organization that can engage in lobbying and get involved in campaigns.
“We want to move people away from the ‘are we causing it,’ and into the, ‘how are we going to solve it,’ ” Faison said Tuesday in an interview.” [The Washington Post]
