E&E News

What happens now for climate policy, oil and gas drilling and Obama's environmental legacy? E&E News reporters chat about their prospects under President-elect Trump, plus a look at congressional dynamics.

What all of this means for energy and environment issues.

Join us Nov. 9 at 1pm EST for an election 2016 postmortem with an energy and environment focus. Taking questions and posing some of our own. Like us on Facebook to join the discussion.

COAL TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Dave Porzi ripped down a trail here at 30 mph. Sandy gravel gave way to a corner of craggy rock. His utility vehicle slowed but rumbled easily around the bend. He gunned it into a thick grove of trees, then found the brake again in time to crawl through standing water deeper than his tire.

Porzi is leaving not only tracks behind these days. To complete his mission, he must also leave in the dust remnants of a coal mining legacy spanning four centuries in eastern Pennsylvania.

Porzi is director of operations at the Anthracite Outdoor Adventure Area (AOAA) — 7,000 acres of old mine sites in this community outside Shamokin now overlaid with hundreds of miles of trails for dirt bikes, all-terrain vehicles and Jeeps.

The riders' paradise — like everything from local fire stations to restaurants — takes its name from anthracite. The glossy, ink-black "hard coal," famed for burning hot and long, built this corner of the world. It also left parts of it in ruins.

When resource extraction can no longer make a community prosper, leaders and politicians scramble for other options. AOAA is trying to use the wreckage of the past to help build the future.

Off-road tourism pops up elsewhere in coal country, with the Rock Run Recreation Area in western Pennsylvania and the Hatfield and McCoy Trails along the border between West Virginia and Kentucky.

About AOAA, Porzi said, "We have something for everyone here."

COAL: Pa. 'wasteland' turns economic engine

The most drawn-out debates during oral arguments over the Obama administration's signature climate rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today centered on whether the rule is "transformative" and on the reach of U.S. EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act.

The 10-judge panel heard nearly seven hours of arguments over the Clean Power Plan, with proceedings wrapping at around 5:45 p.m. in the packed courtroom.

Challengers tried to convince the judges that the Clean Power Plan was unlike anything EPA had ever done. They argued that the rule was both transformative in its effects on the electricity sector, as well as transformative in EPA's reading of the law.

The Clean Air Act is "not written in a way that is perfectly ideal for the regulation of carbon dioxide," Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe argued for industry. "Let's admit it."

Obama's climate rule has its long day in court

Ahhhh what’s happening at today’s Clean Power Plan’s oral arguments you ask??

Don’t worry E&E has you covered:

Read:  Invoking Scalia, judges question whether EPA bent the law

Yet if history is any guide, it's unlikely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and GOP presidential standard-bearer Donald Trump will be asked to address either energy or climate policies in the first of their three 90-minute debates.

How are E&E reporters getting prepped to cover tomorrow’s landmark arguments on Obama’s #climate rule? They told Facebook Live.

Join us tomorrow for our Facebook LIVE UPDATE from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit during the Clean Power Plan arguments! Follow @eepublishing for updates on the time (depends on when the 10 judges get hungry).

https://www.facebook.com/EEnews.net/

The National Park Service just turned 100. Happy Birthday!

Now what?

Climate Change; Budget Cuts; $12B Maintenance Backlog; Safety; Workforce Morale; Diversity...and more

NPS@100: Storied Past, Troubled Future

Let the Carnival Begin! 

E&E coverage of energy, climate & behind the scenes looks at the GOP convention in Cleveland.

Follow #EE_RNC16 on Twitter

Read: Greenwire, ClimateWire & E&ENewsPM all week.

Do you know if the pipes delivering water to your house are made of lead?

The utility that sells you water probably doesn't know either.

Federal law makes lead-pipe removal anything but a cinch

PERRIN, Texas -- On a sunny Saturday afternoon, Cody Murray's water well exploded in flames.

Natural gas unexpectedly flowed up with the water and ignited when a switch flipped in the pump house where he stood. It turned the air to fire.

Murray, a sturdy middle-aged rancher, oil worker and father of two, suffered second- and third-degree burns over nearly a quarter of his body. His father and 4-year-old daughter were also burned in the August 2014 flash fire.

State oil and gas regulators quickly launched an investigation into whether the oil and gas wells scattered around Murray's neighborhood could have leaked methane into his water. The effort was led by the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC), the oddly named state agency in charge of oil and gas in the Lone Star State.

Nearly two years later, RRC officials say they still don't know whether oil and gas wells played a role in the explosion. Although they've traced the gas to the deep layers from which natural gas is produced, they've left the source of the contamination as "inconclusive."

But thousands of pages of RRC records and emails, obtained by EnergyWire under Texas open records law, show significant gaps in the investigation and suggest at least one potential source wasn't fully examined.

A damaged and possibly leaking gas well nearby wasn't tested to see whether it matched the gas in Murray's water. Before the explosion, agency officials dismissed warning signs of stray gas in a neighbor's water well.

And RRC officials found possible errors in their safeguards for keeping stray gas out of groundwater.

A flash fire, third-degree burns and an investigation without end

What’s your favorite?

by Jennifer Yachnin and Evan Lehmann in ClimateWire and E&E Daily

BISMARCK, N.D. -- Donald Trump stopped in this hardscrabble Midwestern town yesterday to pitch his vision for an American future -- one in which fossil fuel production explodes across public lands and Americans "share the riches." The end result: lower taxes, fewer energy regulations and a rush of new funding for infrastructure projects.

In a nearly hourlong speech marking the first major energy policy address of his campaign, the Republican presidential nominee pledged to expand oil and gas production, "cancel" the Paris global warming accord and roll back President Obama's executive actions on climate change.

Trump's energy speech today: substance or sound bites?