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Rep. Scott Peters for years has pursued legislation to combat climate change and protect the environment. But some of the San Diego Democrat’s efforts have clashed with policies favored by environmental groups, and even the Biden administration.
All of the above can be found in the context surrounding the advancement of two of his bills and a recent Supreme Court ruling clearing the way for Biden administration regulations to cut emissions of mercury and methane from power plants. Peters has been pursuing legislation to reduce methane emissions — a particularly potent greenhouse gas — in recent years with support from climate activists. Peters co-authored bills aimed at thinning forests to help prevent wildfires and expediting CHIPS Act projects to facilitate manufacturing of semiconductors, the latter of which was signed by President Joe Biden last week.
Both involve skirting or streamlining some existing and often time-consuming environmental reviews. Peters maintains the measures still allow for adequate environmental protections, but not everyone agrees. The more contentious of the two bills is the Fix Our Forests Act ( H.
R. 8790 ), co-authored by Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark.
, chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources. The bill would allow for quicker removal of forest undergrowth and dead trees on federal land that in essence act as kindling for large, intense brush and forest fires, in part by limiting lawsuits using environmental law to block such projects. The measure also has provisions that seek more fire-resistant construction and building materials and increased community preparedness.
The bill was approved by the House of Representatives in late September, with 55 Democrats in support and no opposition from the Republican majority. At the moment, the measure is given little, if any, chance of passage in the Senate, where Democrats hold a slim majority. The White House issued a statement in opposition to the bill, saying it would undermine environmental protections, but did not threaten a Biden veto, according to E&E News, a subsidiary of Politico.
“This bill is anything but a fix for our forests,” said Rep. Katie Porter, D-Irvine. The legislation “completely misses the mark,” she added.
Ashley Nunes of the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement the bill is “another misleading and cynical attack on our environment and endangered species that does nothing to address wildfire risk.” The Nature Conservancy, which worked with Peters as the bill was being crafted, remained neutral. During the House debate, Peters argued the benefits of the measure outweighed some trade-offs.
“We don’t have time to wait to be perfect,” he said. His office stated that California’s nine largest wildfires on record have occurred during the last decade, and in 2020, California wildfires contributed more to climate change than the state’s entire power sector. “Catastrophic fire has become the single largest source of particulate pollution in the United States, posing a major threat to communities, watersheds, and ecosystems,” the statement said.
“The cost of further inaction has become untenable.” Westerman said the bill included provisions of a stalled measure to allow quicker forest thinning in giant sequoia stands, the Save Our Sequoias Act , which also was co-authored by Peters. Other Peters-backed legislation involves similar political dynamics.
A push to streamline the permitting process to expand and upgrade the nation’s energy grid has opposite sides claiming the environmental high ground. Peters and his allies say duplicative environmental reviews are delaying needed projects to transmit clean energy produced at wind and solar facilities to urban areas. Critics say sidestepping reviews could result in devastation of sensitive lands and harsh impacts on communities.
The debate over the new law to ramp up the semiconductor industry’s production of chips was different. While that technology could and will be used in clean energy projects, the argument to reduce environmental reviews largely rested on national security. Peters expressed concern about the nation’s dependence on Taiwan’s semiconductors industry, given the constant threat to the island by China, and said the U.
S. needs its own reliable supply of semiconductors. The chips are necessary for a wide variety of uses, including artificial intelligence, smartphones and military hardware.
In August 2022, Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act that encourages semiconductor production with subsidies and tax credits. Industries have directed tens of billions of dollars toward manufacturing chips, but have voiced fears that environmental regulations and lawsuits would cause long delays. “We are ensuring that we do not lose a second in the fight for the future while maintaining the world standard in environmental protection,” Peters said in a statement after Biden signed the bill.
The legislation would exempt qualifying chip projects from reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, which requires federal agencies to assess the potential environmental effects of proposed major federal actions before they can proceed, according to The New York Times. The projects would still have to comply with the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, among other environmental laws. Rep.
Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, made a case against the bill in a lette r to Democratic colleagues, saying the semiconductor industry had a “legacy of leaving superfund sites” and a history of using chemicals that have been linked to a higher risk of miscarriages among chip workers. Fights over environmental protections have been a regular feature on Capitol Hill for generations. Those will continue, with an ebb and flow depending on who controls the White House and congressional majorities.
But the bigger changes likely will come from the Supreme Court and its conservative majority, which has sided with several challenges to environmental regulations. But the court isn’t always predictable, as the Biden win on mercury and methane emissions ruling attests..
