Officials edited report to keep US coal plants online
NEW YORK: A newly released correspondence obtained by the Sierra Club through an open records request revealed that Trump administration officials pushed to highlight the value of coal-fired power plants in a government report on the “bomb cyclone” that plunged the Eastern US into single-digit temperatures last January.
The communications shed light on the extent to which coal advocates in the Energy Department worked to highlight the fossil fuel’s significance as an electricity source while building the case for a potentially unprecedented intervention in US power markets to stem plant closures.
They also reveal officials gleefully anticipating the next cold snap and disparaging energy experts who didn’t agree with their coal-focused view as incompetent.
“If the weather blesses us with another cold snap and energy resources get tight, would these daily reports be useful to you again?” Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Steven Winberg asked more than two dozen colleagues in a Jan 10 email.
The documents cover the department’s analysis of how electricity markets performed between late December and early January, when frigid temperatures spurred high power demand.
The “bomb cyclone” caused record-low temperatures as it moved across the US East Coast, driving freezing rain in Florida, and battering New England with hurricaneforce gusts.
“The communications reveal this singleminded approach to get a certain narrative out there about the value of coal power for the grid,” said Casey Roberts, a senior attorney with the Sierra Club.
“What I think we would all hope our national labs are doing is taking an unbiased approach to looking at what the data mean for the reliability of the grid and these enormous policy changes that are being considered — and I don’t see that here.”
Officials involved in the analysis expressed frustration that some government officials had questioned coal’s role in keeping the lights on during the storm.
Ken Kern, the report’s second author, sent at least a half dozen emails to staff members for Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia rebuking recent congressional testimony by Assistant Secretary of Energy Bruce Walker and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Kevin McIntyre.
Mr Kern blamed “apparent bureaucratic resistance or incompetence” for Mr Walker and Mr McIntyre’s “glib responses” to Mr Manchin during a Jan 23 hearing “suggesting that coal generation was helpful but not mandatory”.
The Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund are still seeking other documents surrounding the Trump administration’s efforts to keep coal and nuclear power plants online.
The groups filed a lawsuit in federal court on Monday accusing the Energy Department of failing to provide documents on the issue in response to the their Freedom of Information Act requests.