| Wheeler defends action: Acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler defended the action later Monday, saying the underlying rule isn't being repealed and accusing the Times of mischaracterizing the proposal. "Whoever was their source either didn't understand what we're proposing, or they purposely mislead the New York Times," he said at a children's health event at EPA headquarters. A reporter pointed out that the EPA already took action, under Obama, to answer the Supreme Court's objections about cost-benefit analysis. "We don't believe the proposal before actually addressed the Supreme Court concerns that they raised. So that's what our proposal's about," Wheeler said. What's next: OMB review is supposed to take as much as 60 days, but it depends on any number of factors. After that, the EPA is free to unveil the proposal and invite public comment on it. Happy Monday! Welcome to Overnight Energy, The Hill's roundup of the latest energy and environment news. Please send tips and comments to Timothy Cama, tcama@thehill.com, and Miranda Green, mgreen@thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @Timothy_Cama, @mirandacgreen, @thehill. CLICK HERE to subscribe to our newsletter. JUSTICES DIVIDED OVER FROG CASE: A shorthanded Supreme Court started off its new term Monday seemingly split on what's become a big dispute over a tiny endangered frog. Fresh off summer recess, the justices spent their first hour back on the bench grappling with whether the federal government can legally designate a 1,500-acre tract of private land in Louisiana a "critical habitat" for the dusky gopher frog when the amphibian doesn't live on the property and can't live on it without altering the land. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, members of the court's conservative wing, questioned how far landowners should be expected to go to create a livable habitat for endangered or threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. "What's the limit?" Roberts asked. Weyerhaeuser Company, which is challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) 2012 designation along with the property's other owners, argues the land now used to harvest timber is unsuitable for the frog. The amphibian needs isolated, ephemeral ponds in an open canopy forest to breed, as well as open non-breeding land close to the ponds and open land covered with herbaceous plants connecting the two. Timothy Bishop, the challenger's attorney, argued the timberland would have to be totally remade to support a frog that hasn't been seen on the property since 1965. The frog is currently known to only live in Mississippi. "This is an intensive 1500-acre tree farm," Bishop said. "The trees are planted 10 to 12 feet apart. There is no groundcover because the sunlight does not reach the forest floor, and we don't want it to because that interferes with tending to the trees." But Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler said the land contains rare breeding ponds that need to be preserved to support the frog's survival. "Here the restoration efforts are entirely in sync with the use of the land," he said. "I mean, there are uplands with trees. As I say, they could be thinned." Read more. Court won't take Grand Canyon uranium case: The Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging the government's ban on uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, a major blow to industry groups hoping to mine for the nuclear material. The court said it would not hear the case brought by the National Mining Association and the American Exploration and Mining Association, which challenged the Interior Department's ban as being based on an unconstitutional provision of the law. The rejection leaves in place a December appeals court decision that upheld the ban. In 2012, Obama administration Interior Secretary Ken Salazar instituted the ban, partly because the neighboring Havasupai Tribe relies on groundwater from the area to survive. "The lands in and around the Grand Canyon have always been the homeland of the Havasupai People," Muriel Coochwytewa, the tribe's chairwoman, said in a statement Monday. "Our ancestors lived and died amongst the sacred sites that cover this land. The mineral withdrawal is a necessary way to protect the land and the water that our people and our village depend upon, and we are grateful that the Supreme Court has agreed with the 9th Circuit's conclusion ― that our lands and our people must be preserved." Read more. WHEELER DEFENDS ROLLBACKS AT CHILDREN'S HEALTH EVENT: The EPA's Wheeler on Monday emphatically defended his agency's environmental policy rollbacks as he argued that the EPA is significantly contributing to children's health. At the event in a courtyard at the EPA's Washington headquarters celebrating Child Health Day, Wheeler faced numerous questions from reporters about how the Trump administration's efforts to ease major regulations will impact children, a population considered especially vulnerable to pollution. Wheeler repeatedly maintained that the EPA isn't touching "health-based" standards, and criticized the accounting methods that forecast widespread health impacts from the changes he is carrying out. "We set the health-based standards based on what is necessary to protect health, including children," he told reporters. He said the proposals to roll back greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and power plants pertain to energy efficiency. "Neither one of those is health-based standards per se," he said. "We have our separate health-based standards. We have not changed those. They're still in effect. They'll still be in effect next year, tomorrow." Wheeler said that the EPA's own figures showing health impacts for the rollbacks -- such as that the proposed replacement for the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan would cause 1,400 additional deaths -- are based on "co-benefits," or the benefits obtained from reducing pollutants that are not directly regulated, like nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. "We believe the math the Obama administration used is a little suspect," he said. Read more. BIG OIL BACKS NAFTA DEAL: The American Petroleum Institute (API) is backing the Trump administration's latest iteration of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), calling the proposal "critical." Following the announcement that Trump had helped the U.S. come to a trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada on Sunday, API on Monday urged Congress to approve the measure that the administration is calling the United States, Mexico, and Canada Agreement (USMCA). “Having Canada as a trading partner and a party to this agreement is critical for North American energy security and U.S. consumers,” API said in a statement on the deal. “Retaining a trade agreement for North America will help ensure the U.S. energy revolution continues into the future.” Read more. Click here for five things to know about the deal. Trump took a victory lap on Monday, but congressional approval is still up in the air. ON TAP TUESDAY: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will meet to vote on public lands bills. Senators are expected to consider bipartisan legislation to indefinitely renew the just-expired Land and Water Conservation Fund and to create a new fund to use energy revenue from federal land and offshore to pay down the National Park Service's nearly $12 billion maintenance backlog. | 
