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Colorado Advocates Pushing for More Renewable Natural Gas

It seems that, in 2020, the entire nation has finally gotten down to the business of fighting climate change. Climate activists, legislators, and oil and gas industry professionals are all tackling climate change with their own ideas. More often than not, those efforts are focused on increasing the range of solar and wind power as well as finding more efficient ways to extract oil and gas. 

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A Compassionate Way to Streamline Environmental Impact Reviews

In early January, the Trump administration released a bold new proposal to boost the efficiency of American business while preserving the sanctity of the U.S. environment. The initiative would streamline the currently protracted environmental impact review process by shaving as much as fifty percent off the current wait time.

Five Years and Counting

On the first day of January, 1970, President Richard Nixon signed into law the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The new law required the government to conduct an assessment of the potential for adverse environmental impact on any new project taking place on federal lands. Nixon’s goal was to enact legislation that required citizens and businesses alike to stop and think about their actions before plunging ahead with any plans.

In those early days of NEPA, the entire review process took a matter of weeks. Over the years, however, a series of court cases that imposed consistently harsher regulations on the environmental impact process saw it continue to expand beyond control. Today, the average environmental impact review takes more than five years from filing to approval. That’s assuming that things don’t go wrong or that the review office in question isn’t overwhelmed or underfunded. Some environmental review processes can last as long as seven years.

Maintaining an Environmental Commitment

On January 10, roughly 50 years after the legislation became law, the Trump administration suggested trimming the environmental review process down to a maximum of two years. Anti-energy protestors paint the decision as a ‘dangerous move.’ Those inside the industry, however, understand that the environmental review process has become overloaded with bureaucratic bloat. 

Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, wrote in a statement, that NEPA, “has become associated with inherent uncertainty, prolonged project delays and stifling of investment.”

Experts, meanwhile, suggest that the environmental impact review process could easily be streamlined. Redundant and outdated procedures abound throughout the environmental impact review process and could be easily eliminated without posing a danger to the environment.

It’s also important to note that “two years” is a suggested goal, not a hard and fast rule. There was no suggestion that NEPA would have any necessary regulations removed, regardless of how much time they added to the overall process.

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Chris Hohn Brings His Climate War to the States

In December, billionaire hedge fund manager Chris Hohn made headlines when he sent several very public letters to companies with which he’d invested. As the head of the charitably-named The Children’s Investment (TCI) Fund (which holds more than $28 billion in assets), the people on the receiving end of those letters were big names like Google, Microsoft, and the Canadian National Railway. 

In the letter, TCI proclaimed that it would begin to make financial decisions based on a company’s ability to combat climate change. Indeed, TCI has demanded that the companies with which it invests should “publicly disclose all of their emissions” and establish “a credible plan for their reduction.”

A Big Time Payday

Just two days after his big announcement, reports circulated that Hohn had gifted himself $261 million in dividend payments in spite of the fact that TCI only made $260 million (and endured a third straight year of diminished profits) in 2019. 

Equal pay activist Luke Hildyard lamented the payout, saying: 

“You don’t have to want to upend the entire system or have anything against Sir Chris Hohn personally to feel uncomfortable with one individual raking in £200m in a country where ordinary workers are enduring the longest period of pay stagnation since the Napoleonic wars and record numbers are resorting to food banks to feed their families.”

Behind the Center for Climate Integrity

Hohn is expected to funnel at least a portion of his year-end bonus into asserting his personal anti-energy agenda. In early January, it was reported that Hohn has moved his climate agenda to the United States. The billionaire reportedly devoted millions to sponsor US-based protest groups who are spoiling to take their fight with oil and gas companies into a courtroom.

In the past, the Center for Climate Intervention, one of the companies funded almost entirely by Chris Hohn, has fueled the fire of climate change litigation around the country. In Miami, for example, the CCI went so far as to purchase billboards meant to stir the population into pressuring civic leaders to take legal action against oil and gas companies.

The Billionaire Meddler

Hohn is expected to ramp up donations to his pocket charity over the coming year in an effort to force US oil and gas companies to bend to his will. In doing so, the foreign financial leader is actively and unrepentantly trying to impose his will on the people of another nation.