Biden Bans Offshore Oil Drilling, We'll See How Long It Takes For Trump To Reverse That

President Biden this week announcing a ban on oil
drilling in much of the offshore waters
around the United States.

 It might be a bit of a Hail Mary, and probably a bit Sysiphean, but President Joe Biden this week banned new offshore oil and gas drilling in almost all U.S. coastal waters.  

The move was an effort to at least throw a monkey wrench in incoming President Donald Trump's plans to, as he puts it, drill, baby drill. 

Climate change is part of Biden's motivation for this. "As the climate crisis continued to threaten communities across the countermand we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren," he said. 

Biden's move was also probably prodded by his memories of the big oil spill along the beaches of Santa Barbara, California in January, 1969.

".....drilling  off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation's energy needs," Biden said in a statement. 

Biden's acton will at least delay the offshore part of incoming President Trump's climate-denying drill baby drill approach to fossil fuel extraction.

Trump continues to cling to the notion that climate change is a hoax, and that clean energy is basically worthless, so we have to keep burning fossil fuel. His brain hasn't really left the 1950s. And besides, the United States has never produced as much oil as we do now, even with efforts to transform to a "clean energy economy."

For his part, Trump said he would end Biden's drilling ban on "day one." 

"I will unban it immediately," Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, "I have the right to unban it."

Actually, he doesn't.

According to the Associated Press, Biden's authority to enact this ban is under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which allows the president to protect offshore areas.  Once a president does what Biden has done, an act of Congress is needed to undo it.

It's a Republican Congress full of Trump fanboys and girls, so no doubt they'll do the deed, but it will take a lot more longer to complete than it say, the act of throwing ketchup against a White House wall.

Environmentalists were strangely elated at this development, considering the Republican Congress will get rid of this order soon enough. A for instance from the AP: "This is an epic ocean victory!" said Joseph Gordon, campaign director for the environmental group Oceana. 

For a little while, anyway. 

As NPR explains, much of the ocean territory where Biden banned new drilling is not of immediate interest to oil companies, except for an area they're salivating over in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Still, the ever-present American Petroleum Institute, who spent last week throwing darts at Vermont's climate superfund law, are in a bit of a snit over Biden's move.

"American voters sent a clear message in support of domestic energy development, and yet the current administration is using its final days in office to cement a record of doing everything possible to restrict it," American Petroleum Institute president Mike Sommers said in a statement. 

Or did voters actually send that "clear message?"

Trump clearly won the election, but in the popular vote it was only a 49-48 split in the percentages. And I didn't see any polling during the election in which there was a huge groundswell of Americans demanding new drilling.

Sure, nobody wants to pay an arm and a leg for gasoline, or fuel oil, and I suppose increased domestic production would help tamp prices down. Though it's a global market, so world events could upset that anti-inflationary setup no matter how much oil the United States pumps out of the ground. 

Besides, at last check, the United States was producing more crude oil than any other nation at any time, says the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 

Given that fact it will be hard for Trump to increase oil production beyond where we're already at.  

Trump thinks his efforts will cut energy costs in half for consumers. That's a tall order, but he doesn't have a great track record of following through with his promises anyway, so take that with a grain of salt. 

Meanwhile, we're cranking out the oil and burning it up and making climate change worse and thus making disasters worse and making the world a more difficult place in which to live. 

Trump wants to make the U.S. dominant, all right. One of the main things we might well  be dominate at is making the most destructive contributions to climate change of any nation in the world.  

One Telling Example Of Why Climate Change Adaptation Is Hard

Aerial view of flooding in Waterbury, Vermont this
summer. Photo from University of Vermont via Vermont Public.

We had yet another flood in Vermont this month.  For the second time in five months, the town of Waterbury was hit especially hard. 

Like many communities in Vermont - and around the world for that matter - Waterbury is trying to figure out how to adapt to climate change. 

The town is built in large part in the Winooski river flood plain. Wetter and more intense storms are making the Winooski more likely to flood, and that trend will continue well into the future. 

It's literally sink or swim for Waterbury. 

Recent events, though, demonstrate how hard it can be to adapt. Even seemingly simple, relatively inexpensive ideas are easily shot down. 

After the severe flooding in Waterbury from Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, town officials began to seek ways to mitigate future disasters. One idea in particular popped out.

As Vermont Public reports:

"Experts quickly identified a straight forward project that could provide huge relief for a modest expense. They determined that a small field in neighboring Duxbury sat at a crucial spot on the river, and that building a floodplain in the field could dramatically reduce flood levels a mile away in Waterbury Village.

For $3 million, the project would reduce flooding in downtown Waterbury by as much as 12 inches and prevent millions of dollars of damage to homes and businesses, officials said. 

Better yet, converting the field into a floodplain didn't require knocking down a home or any building. And Waterbury taxpayers wouldn't suffer much of a hit - FEMA would pick up 75 percent  of the cost, and officials hoped to secure grants to spare taxpayers the 25 percent local match."

There's a choke point on the Winooski River in Waterbury a little north of the Winooski Street Bridge. At that point the river runs between the private property and railroad tracks near and parallel to Route 2.

Somewhat elevated land on both sides of the river at that spot means the river can't spread out. It creates a sort of dam that eventually releases a crapload of water back into the town during severe rainstorms.  The idea was to lower land owned by the Harvey family so the water would spill onto that property, which would spread out the water and reduce flooding in the village. 

The problem is that somebody owns that private property in Duxbury. 

That would be the Harvey family, who have lived  on an adjacent property for more than a century. Vermont Public says the family would have kept their land, would have been paid an unspecified price for its use, or may received another piece of land for allowing the project to happen. 

To be fair to the Harveys, they need that land. It's a big part of their livelihood. They train and pasture horses on the parcel that would face more frequent inundations under the plan. So they wouldn't entertain the idea of turning their land into more of a flood plain to potential reduce trouble in Waterbury. 

Vermont Public goes on: 

"They have used the field, which is less than 10 acres to train racehorses, and feared that if it flooded more frequently, it wouldn't be usable. Maureen Harvey told Vermont Public recently.  They were also skeptical of the project's purported benefits. 'I'm not saving the world, I'm not saving Waterbury,' Harvey said. 'It's not a plan that really, I don't think, in the long term is going to do squat.'"

I can understand the Harveys' point of view.  It can be hard to imagine how the plan would work if you're not a hydrologist. That's not to say the experts are wrong about the potential benefits of the plan. They probably are correct. It's just hard to picture it. Especially when the plan threatens the use of your land the way you had intend. 

The State of Vermont could have played hardball. They could have seized the property under eminent domain by declaring the land was necessary for flood control projects. But ultimately, state officials declined to do that. 

Vermont Public explains: 

"The way things work in Vermont is we don't take people's land or force then to do things on their land,' said Roy Schiff, a water resource engineer and scientist who authored the 2013 study that identified the Harveys' field as a potential site for a floodplain."

The Harveys refusal to participate and the state's reluctance to push the issue, probably predicts what will happen when officials try even more complicate flood prevention projects. 

Of course, the December flood added more urgency to the idea of mitigating floods in Waterbury. Once again, parts of the town flooded, including a number of homes on Randall and parts of Elm Streets. 

The Waterbury thing would have been a relatively easy fix. Now imagine what Vermont flood-prone communities need to do when there's a lot more moving parts, and a lot more private properties involved.

Barre is another flood prone Vermont city.  In October, Gov Phil Scott, who grew up in Barre, presented an ambitious major re-do of Barre to flood proof the community. 

It's only a first draft, but as VTDigger describes it, the plan envisions demolishing 92 existing housing units - both single family homes and apartments - in the flood prone north side of downtown. That area would be replaced by parkland and flood plain.

On the edge of this area, above where flood waters would reach, the idea is to building mid and high rise buildings and single family homes, for a total of 225 new homes and apartments. 

Again, it's just an idea. But can you imagine how difficult it would be to get everybody to sign on to this?  Yeah, stay tuned. 

All this is just two examples of the extremely difficult task Vermont has in facing the consequences of  climate change. It's mot just about making a few culverts bigger. Been there, done that. We're going to need to find away to redesign much of the Green Mountain State. 

 

Tension Between Politicians And Meteorologists Boils Over Again, This Time In Maine

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, shown here repairing
a neighbor's driveway after July's floods,
seems to work well with the National 
Weather Service when coordinating storm
emergencies. responses. However,
politicians sometimes use the NWS as
scapegoats when an emergency response
doesn't go as well as hoped. 

 "It came without warning," is the usual phrase we often hear after a weather disaster. Be it a tornado, wind storm, or flood, somebody will blame a meteorologist for not telling them danger was coming.

It's true that sometimes meteorologists, who are only human practicing an inexact science, indeed get it wrong. But often, the perception is at odds with the facts.  

So it was in Maine last week. 

The flood we experienced here in Vermont on December 18-19 was bad enough. In New Hampshire and Maine, it was even worse than what we experienced in the Green Mountain State. This was likely the second worst flood in Maine history. Only a 1987 flood was worse.

Which brings us to a tiff between Maine Gov. Janet Mills and the National Weather Service.

As the Bangor Daily News reports:

"'The National Weather Service did not predict five or six inches of rain in any community in Maine,' said Governor Mills Wednesday, speaking at a press conference after touring flood damage in Kennebec County."

But au contraire!

The National Weather Service in Maine rebuffed the governor. The storm was "well-forecasted and communicated in advance, including the potential for rainfall totals of 4-6 inches with localized areas receiving higher amounts," says the NWS.

The NWS noted that it provided forecasts and briefings to local and state officials starting on December 15, more than two full days before the disaster struck. 

"In advance for the hazards that were likely to occur on Monday, December 18, NWS forecasters informed local and state officials in the days leading up to the storm through daily email briefing packages, direct phone  conversation and virtual city and statewide briefings."

The NWS continued in their statement:

"The first flood watch and high wind watch were issued on Saturday afternoon, two full days before the storm. The state of Maine hosts a coordination call Sunday afternoon with NWS forecast offices in Gray and Caribou briefing on the expected flood, wind and coastal flood impacts. Rain began on Sunday bight, and by Monday morning NWS offices had issue flood warnings."

As you can see, the National Weather Service keeps all their receipts. There are many good reasons for this: Those receipts can clear up misinformation regarding their forecasts. 

This really came in handy back in 2019, when then-president Trump said Hurricane Dorian was going to hit Alabama. A National Weather Service office in Alabama refuted Trump's claim. When they got annoying blowback (including through the infamous hurricane Sharpie map) from Trump and his MAGA minions, the National Weather Service was able to prove how their Dorian forecasts evolved. The NWS showed how and why they reassured Alabamans that the storm would be no threat to them. 

There's another important reason for all those NWS receipts after a severe weather event.  If their storm predictions turned out to be even a little inaccurate, the National Weather Service  can use its huge paper trails to figure out went wrong to improve future forecasts. And how to better communicate with local and state leaders, not to mention the public. 

The comments by Maine Gov. Janet Mills were not nearly as egregious as what Trump did there. Her criticism was pretty mild and fleeting. It didn't involve any direct interference in their operations. Politicians almost never go that far. Still,   politicians will sometimes blame the meteorologists and their messengers if they mishandle a weather emergency. 

Those politicians know screwing up a storm response can end their careers. Or enhance their careers, if they handle the emergency deftly. (To be fair to the Maine governor, the National Weather Service offices in Maine DID warn of strong winds, but those winds were slightly stronger than forecast).

Still, efforts by politicians to blame supposedly inaccurate weather forecasts are a tried and true way to go.

When flash flooding from former Hurricane Ida inundated New York City and took 13 lives of residents in the process, then-mayor Bill de Blasio said, 'Here's what we did not know, that we would have literally shocking and unprecedented rainfall," the mayor said after the storm.  "No one projected that coming."

Only they did. The National Weather Service and other local meteorologists spent the days and hours ahead of the Ida flash flood pulling their hair out telling the public that the flooding would be especially severe and scary. 

Here in Vermont, it seems like the state's political leaders have a good working relationship with the National Weather Service. 

Prior to the Hurricane Irene floods in 2011, then-governor Peter Shumlin activated the state's emergency management center. He repeated NWS warnings of impeding severe floods. 

Much more recently, just ahead of, during and after the state's devastating July floods, Gov. Phil Scott kept going out of the way urging Vermonters to take NWS weather forecasts and warnings seriously. 

The day before the floods July 10 floods hit, Scott used National Weather Service's (accurate!) forecasts to declare a state of emergency, deploy swift water rescue teams around the state and warn people to be on guard and to take NWS flood warnings seriously. 

The combination of the NWS flood forecasts, the Scott administration's reaction to those forecasts and media attention to all this likely saved lives. Two people died in the summer floods, which is obviously tragic. But a disaster of that magnitude "should have" created more fatalities. It didn't. The coordinated weather warnings between the NWS and Vermont leaders surely helped. 

The December floods were a bit more complicated. Rainfall was slightly more than the NWS predicted and snowmelt was slightly more intense than expected. So the flooding that emerged that Monday was worse, somewhat catching the Scott administration by surprise. 

But by late morning and early afternoon that day, Vermont emergency managers were on top of it. So was the National Weather Service office in South Burlington.

The bottom line is, the next time you hear politicians and even the public say the "storm came with no warning," check out the receipts from the National Weather Service. Sometimes they do botch a forecast, or don't issue a timely warning. But often, they're just a convenient scapegoat.