The New York Times - USA (2020-07-22)

WASHINGTON — Not long af-

ter President Trump’s inaugura-

tion, the head of a fossil fuels in-

dustry group requested a call with

the president’s transition team.

The subject: Barack Obama’s re-

quirement that oil and gas compa-

nies begin collecting data on their

releases of methane.

That outreach, by Kathleen

Sgamma, president of the Western

Energy Alliance, appeared to

quickly yield the desired results.

“Looks like this will be easier

than we thought,” David Kreutzer,

an economist who was helping to

organize the new president’s Envi-

ronmental Protection Agency,

wrote of canceling the methane re-

porting requirement in an email to

another member of the transition

team on Feb. 10, 2017.

Three weeks after that email,

the E.P.A. officially withdrew the

reporting requirement — and ef-

fectively blocked the compilation

of data that would allow for new

regulations to control methane, a

powerful climate-warming gas.

The emails are included in hun-

dreds of pages of E.P.A. staff corre-

spondence and interviews re-

cently made public in a lawsuit

that 15 states have brought

against the agency over the regu-

lation of methane. Led by Massa-

chusetts and New York, the states

say the documents prove that fos-

sil fuel industry players, working

with allies in the early days of Mr.

Trump’s E.P.A., engineered the re-

peal of the methane reporting re-

quirements with no internal analy-

sis, then created the rationale for

the decision after the fact.

That repeal, the states assert, il-

legally delayed the development

of additional regulations to reduce

methane emissions that the ad-

ministration did not want.

If the states succeed, a judge

could, as early as this summer, or-

der the federal government to im-

pose restrictions on thousands of

oil and gas wells, storage facilities

and pipelines across the United

States. Just last week, a federal

court, restoring an Obama-era

regulation, struck down a Bureau

of Land Management effort to

weaken restrictions on methane

gas releases from drilling on pub-

lic lands.

In that case, Judge Yvonne Gon-

zalez Rogers ruled that the Trump

administration, in its “haste” and

“zeal,” failed to properly justify its

rollback.

“In the early days they did very

little justification,” said Richard

Revesz, a professor of envi-

ronmental law at New York Uni-

versity and director of the Insti-

tute for Policy Integrity, the uni-

versity’s nonpartisan think tank.

So far, only about 10 percent of the

Trump administration’s deregula-

tory efforts have held up in court,

according to the institute, com-

pared to an average of 70 percent

for other administrations, both Re-

publican and Democratic.

“They justify their policies on

analytically flimsy or sometimes

nonexistent grounds, thinking, I

guess, that they will get away with

it,” Mr. Revesz said. “But time and

again, the courts say no.”

Methane, which leaks from oil

and gas wells, accounts for about

10 percent of greenhouse gas

emissions from human activity in

the United States, according to

E.P.A. data. But it is about 30 times

more potent over the course of a

century than carbon dioxide in al-

tering the Earth’s climate and is

responsible for about a quarter of

man-made global warming.

Several attorneys general have

filed a motion for summary judg-

ment with the United States Cir-

cuit Court for the District of Co-

lumbia asking it to compel the

E.P.A. to set new standards.

“From the start, we’ve known

the Trump Administration has

been more interested in greasing

the skids for the fossil fuel indus-

try to make billions than protect-

ing the health of our communities,

and now we’ve got the receipts,”

said Maura Healey, the attorney

general of Massachusetts.

James Hewitt, an E.P.A. spokes-

man, declined to comment on the

substance of the lawsuit’s allega-

tions, saying in a statement the

agency intended to file its re-

sponse by Aug. 14.

Ms. Sgamma and Mr. Kreutzer

said that, because it was clear that

the Trump administration would

have a different policy on methane

from the Obama administration,

career staff members at the E.P.A.

agreed that continuing with a re-

quirement to collect data on re-

leases of methane no longer made

sense.

“It would have been a waste of

time to submit data that weren’t

going to be used,” Ms. Sgamma

said of her email. “I merely called

this to their attention.”

Mr. Kreutzer, who rejects the

scientific consensus on climate

change and is now a senior econo-

mist at the Institute for Energy

Research, a research organization

that supports fossil fuels, said he

did not recall “any pushback or

controversy” over the decision. “It

would have been the worst sort of

bureaucratic indifference to im-

pose a costly burden to collect in-

formation that no longer had a

purpose,” he said.

Mr. Obama’s 2015 methane reg-

ulation was part of a groundbreak-

ing series of federal climate regu-

lations. With a goal of cutting

methane emissions in half by 2025,

the rule, which was completed the

following year, required compa-

nies to install technology to detect

and fix methane leaks in all new

and heavily modified facilities.

Under the Clean Air Act, when

the E.P.A. moves to regulate pollu-

tion from new sources, the agency

must also develop pollution stand-

ards for existing sources. In

preparation for developing a sec-

ond regulation for existing facili-

ties, the agency in late 2016 re-

quired companies to report infor-

mation about their emissions,

their equipment and their meth-

ane controls. The so-called infor-

mation collection request became

known as the I.C.R.

When Mr. Trump took office, the

government became more recep-

tive to the concerns of the oil and

gas industry. In addition to elimi-

nating the reporting request, the

E.P.A. also moved to weaken the

Obama administration’s methane

rules for new facilities. A final ver-

sion of those regulations are ex-

pected out this summer.

According to the emails made

public in the lawsuit, Ms. Sgamma

reached out to Mr. Kreutzer on

Feb. 2. “I know you’re under water

right now,” she wrote, but she

hoped they might find time to talk

about the reporting requirement

that she said was creating “confu-

sion” for companies.

The two spoke and on Feb. 10.

Ms. Sgamma followed up with an-

other email outlining “key ratio-

nales” for eliminating the report-

ing requirement, or to allow com-

panies more time.

“It seems unlikely that the new

E.P.A. will approach this ‘existing’

source regulation in the same

way,” Ms. Sgamma wrote. If the

agency is not likely to regulate

current sources of methane, she

added, “then it does not make

sense for every operator in the

country to go through this burden-

some information request.”

That day, Mr. Kreutzer called

Sarah Dunham, then the acting

administrator of the E.P.A.’s air of-

fice, and contacted David W.

Schnare, a longtime opponent of

climate science and another mem-

ber of the E.P.A. transition team.

In an afternoon email to Ms.

Dunham with the subject line “Re:

Quashing the I.C.R.,” Mr. Kreutzer

asked her to draft a request to

withdraw the methane informa-

tion collection.

On March 2, the E.P.A. adminis-

trator, Scott Pruitt, formally an-

nounced the immediate withdraw-

al of the information request.

“Today’s action will reduce bur-

dens on businesses while we take

a closer look at the need for addi-

tional information from this indus-

try,” he said.

The agency later said the deci-

sion brought the E.P.A. into com-

pliance with Mr. Trump’s execu-

tive order to roll back his prede-

cessor’s climate change regula-

tions — but that executive order

was issued March 28, almost a

month after the agency had

stopped collecting data.

Meantime, the emails show, the

morning of Mr. Pruitt’s announce-

ment, top E.P.A. political staff had

not yet prepared a legal justifica-

tion for the decision.

“The Administrator wants this

turned into a Notice for Federal

Register publication and he wants

it over there today for publication

tomorrow,” Mr. Schnare wrote to

career staff just before 9 a.m. on

March 2, adding, “It can be lit-

erally three sentences long.”

Regulations can only be legally

revoked after lengthy analyses

and public comment periods; in-

formation collection requests can

simply be canceled. Still, deposi-

tions show, senior E.P.A. officials

in charge of the program said

there was no internal review and

that they only became aware of the

basis for revoking the request

shortly before Mr. Pruitt’s an-

nouncement.

In an interview, Mr. Schnare

said plans to end the information

request and the rest of Mr. Oba-

ma’s climate policies long pre-

dated Ms. Sgamma’s letter.

“We were already working on

this,” he said. “She wasn’t the first

person to tell us, ‘Hey, this is a

problem.’ ”

The emails appear to tell a dif-

ferent story. Late in the day of Mr.

Pruitt’s announcement, Ms.

Sgamma emailed Mr. Kreutzer,

“From the bottom of my heart,

thank you.”

Mr. Kreutzer responded imme-

diately, “Thank you for bringing it

to our attention.”

“With all the commotion of the

transition, the very sensible pro-

posal to cancel the I.C.R. fell

through the cracks,” he added.

“Kudos to you for being alert!”

The Trump administration in 2017 removed a requirement that oil and gas companies collect data on their releases of methane.

NICK OXFORD/REUTERS

Energy Industry Moved Swiftly to Undo Curbs

New Emails Reveal How E.P.A. Skipped Protocols in Rolling Back Rules on Methane

By LISA FRIEDMAN

Making Haste

Scott Pruitt eliminated a requirement on to report methane emissions before the

Environmental Protection Agency had established an internal review or legal justification.

Mr. Pruitt, the former head of

the E.P.A., testifying in 2018.

TOM BRENNER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

A20 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALWEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 2020

Michael D. Cohen says it was no
secret that he was writing a jail-
house tell-all book about his for-
mer boss, President Trump. He
spent hours at a stretch working
on his manuscript in a prison li-
brary before he was released on
furlough in May because of the co-
ronavirus.
Then, this month, federal offi-
cials abruptly sent Mr. Cohen
back to prison because he balked
at signing an agreement that
would have let him stay at home
with a key restriction: He would
not have been allowed to publish
his book before the November
elections.
Now Mr. Cohen has responded
with a lawsuit claiming that the
government has violated his First
Amendment rights by returning
him to custody and interrupting
his writing.
The lawsuit, filed in federal
court in Manhattan on Monday
night, asked a judge to once again
release Mr. Cohen and let him to
serve the remainder of his three-
year sentence back in home con-
finement.
The complaint, filed on Mr. Co-
hen’s behalf by private lawyers
and the American Civil Liberties
Union, accuses Attorney General
William P. Barr and federal prison
officials of using his return to pris-
on as a way to stop the publication
of the book, which, court papers
say, paints the president as a rac-
ist.
“The government cannot im-
prison Michael Cohen for writing
a book about President Trump,”
said Ben Wizner, director of the
A.C.L.U.’s Speech, Privacy and
Technology Project.
The Justice Department did not
respond to requests for comment.
The Bureau of Prisons said in a
statement that it would not com-
ment on pending litigation or legal
proceedings.
The judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein,
scheduled a hearing for Thursday.
This latest twist in Mr. Cohen’s
long-running saga began in May
when he was allowed to go home
from a minimum-security prison
camp in Otisville, N.Y., about 75
miles northwest of New York City,
as part of an effort by the Bureau
of Prisons to curb the spread of co-
ronavirus behind bars. He had ex-
pected to serve the rest of his term
in home confinement.
But federal officials returned
him to prison on July 9 after they
claimed that he refused to sign an
agreement promising, in part,
that he would not publish a book
while still serving his time.
In an affidavit filed with his suit,
Mr. Cohen, 53, argued that he
never, in fact, refused to sign the
agreement, but merely had his
lawyer ask a few questions about
what it required. “I was shocked,”
he wrote, “when three U.S. Mar-
shals later arrived with handcuffs
and shackles to take me into cus-
tody.”
Mr. Cohen also said that he
never hid the fact that he was writ-
ing a book about Mr. Trump, not-
ing that he spent his mornings
working on the manuscript “in
plain sight” in the prison’s law li-
brary, and also discussed his
project with prison officials, staff
members and other inmates.
The book, he said, was tenta-
tively titled “Disloyal: The True
Story of Michael Cohen, Former
Personal Attorney to President
Donald J. Trump.”
According to his lawsuit, the
book will give a glimpse into Mr.

Cohen’s “firsthand experiences

with Mr. Trump” and offer

“graphic details about the presi-

dent’s behavior behind closed

doors.”

“The narrative describes point-

edly certain anti-Semitic remarks

against prominent Jewish people

and virulently racist remarks

against such Black leaders as

President Barack Obama and Nel-

son Mandela,” the lawsuit says.

One of Mr. Cohen’s private law-

yers, E. Danya Perry, said in court

papers that she had asked federal

prosecutors who had handled Mr.

Cohen’s case to intervene on his

behalf and urge the Bureau of

Prisons to give him a second

chance to be transferred to home

confinement.

But, she said, when the prosecu-

tors responded that the decision

was up to prison officials and they

could not say when it would be

made, Mr. Cohen’s legal team

opted to go to court. A spokesman

for the U.S. attorney’s office in

Manhattan declined to comment.

A legal bulldog who once

bragged he would take a bullet for

Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen pleaded

guilty in 2018 to campaign finance

violations and other crimes con-

nected to a scheme to pay hush

money to two women — a former

adult film actress and a former

Playboy model — who claimed

they had affairs with Mr. Trump

before he was president.

In his guilty plea, he pointed the

finger at the president, telling the

court that Mr. Trump had directed

him to arrange the hush money

payments for the purpose of influ-

encing the 2016 election. Mr.

Trump has denied the allegations.

Mr. Cohen’s lawyers argued in

the new lawsuit that his project

was only the latest book critical of

the president that Mr. Trump and

his allies have sought to keep from

being pub-

lished.

In June, the

Justice Depart-

ment asked a

judge to delay

the release of

“The Room

Where it Hap-

pened,” a mem-

oir by John R.

Bolton, the for-

mer national

security adviser who, among

other things, confirmed accusa-

tions at the heart of the Democrat-

ic impeachment case over the

president’s dealings with

Ukraine. The judge ultimately de-

nied the request.

On the same day that Mr.

Bolton’s book was published, Mr.

Trump’s younger brother, Robert

S. Trump, filed a suit seeking to

stop the publication of a family

tell-all written by their niece,

Mary L. Trump.

After a few weeks of whirlwind

litigation, the judge in that case

sided with Ms. Trump, allowing

her to publish her memoir, which

accused Mr. Trump of embracing

cheating “as a way of life” and of

paying someone to take his col-

lege entrance exams.

When Mr. Cohen was sent back

to prison, he was immediately

placed in solitary confinement.

Locked down for 23 hours a day

without access to a computer, he

wrote in his affidavit, he has been

unable to edit his manuscript.

“Given my hope to communi-

cate my impressions, ideas, and

political thoughts through my

book in September 2020, in ad-

vance of the presidential elec-

tions,” he added, “this time is a

critical juncture.”

Cohen Suit Says Government

Re-Jailed Him to Stop Tell-All

By ALAN FEUER

and BENJAMIN WEISER

Michael

D. Cohen

FRONT PAGE

An article on Tuesday about the
anti-feminist lawyer suspected in
the deadly attack on a judge’s
family misstated the age of the
suspect, Roy Den Hollander, who
was later found dead. He was 72,
not 69.

An article on Saturday about
street demonstrations in Port-
land, Ore., misidentified the object
that a protester was holding when
he was struck in the head by an
impact munition. It was a
speaker, not a sign.

BUSINESS

An article on Monday about Judy
Shelton, a nominee for the power-
ful Federal Reserve Board, mis-
stated the final year of Christo-
pher Waller’s term on the Fed’s
Board of Governors if his nomina-
tion is approved. It would be 2030,
not 2026.

SPORTS
Because of an editing error, an
article on Tuesday about the
decision by the New York Giants

and New York Jets not to admit

fans for regular-season games,

misidentified the location of the

Jets’ training camp. It is located

in Florham Park, N.J., not New

York.

An article on Tuesday about

N.B.A.-linked social media ac-

counts misidentified the N.B.A.

team that Meyers Leonard plays

for. It is the Miami Heat, not the

Portland Trail Blazers.

ARTS

A Reporter’s Notebook on Satur-

day about plans for the release of

Christopher Nolan’s film “Tenet”

overstated what is known about

Christopher Nolan’s compensa-

tion for the film. While it has been

reported that Nolan will receive

20 percent of the film’s first-dollar

gross, both Nolan and Warner

Bros. dispute that figure and have

not disclosed details about No-

lan’s compensation.

An article on Saturday about

Adam Greenfield’s plans to

present four plays directed by

women in Playwrights Horizons’

next season misstated the num-

ber of years that Tim Sanford was

artistic director of Playwrights

Horizons. It was nearly 25 years,

not 35.

Errors are corrected during the press

run whenever possible, so some errors

noted here may not have appeared in

all editions.

Corrections

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