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DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS LOOK FOR ADVANTAGE IN FOSSIL FUEL FIGHT IN AFTERMATH OF SAUDI OIL ATTACKS: Democrats and Republicans are looking to use the Saudi oil strike to make their case for the future of fossil fuels in America.
Senator Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said Monday he plans to reintroduce legislation reinstating the four-decade crude oil export ban lifted under by Congress under the Obama administration.
“Efforts to upend oil markets in the Middle East underscore the need to end our reliance on oil,” Markey said. “Energy independence won’t be found in a Saudi oil field, but in an American solar farm,” he added, plugging his Green New Deal resolution that would transition the U.S. to 100% clean, renewable, and zero-emitting energy.
Yes, but it could have been worse, Republican say: Republicans and industry allies say the shale boom has protected the U.S. from big energy price spikes, with the U.S. becoming the world’s largest oil and gas producer.
“For anyone wondering why so many of us believe that American supply matters, now you know,” said Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, speaking at a hearing Tuesday morning.
The American Petroleum Institute promoted an op-ed by its chief economist Dean Foreman on Monday touting the trade group’s monthly oil market report to be introduced this week that will show U.S. oil production set new records at 12.3 million barrels per day.
“For a second year in a row, the U.S. has supplied virtually all global growth in oil demand — and now can backstop global oil markets during a potential crisis,” Foreman writes.
This disagreement is just the start: Expect to see the attacks on Saudi Arabia become a bigger part of the presidential campaign rhetoric, which has been dominated up to this point by Democratic proposals to end the use of fossil fuels.
“The main point from the Democrats perspective is they want to transition away from oil and gas for climate reasons,” Kevin Book, managing director for research at ClearView Energy, told Josh. “Now they are likely to argue economic motives are further reasons for a transition.”
Democratic analysts say the oil price spike proves that U.S. foreign policy remains beholden to global energy supply and that the only way to stop that is to transition the world away from oil through efficiency and alternative fuels in transportation.
“I suspect Senator Markey is trying to highlight the fact that oil prices are set by the global market, and our level of production, especially being such a massive consumer of oil, really doesn’t change the equation,” Mike Carr, a former Democratic counsel to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told Josh. “The good news is that true alternatives such as biofuels and electric vehicles are a lot further along, so actually getting the American economy off of the global oil treadmill looks a lot more possible to voters.”
Trump is going the opposite way: The Trump administration’s policies could increase U.S. dependence on oil.
Its proposal to freeze Obama-era fuel-efficiency standards, the administration acknowledges, will cause an additional 500,000 barrels of U.S. oil to be consumed each day.
An analysis by the independent Rhodium Group similarly projects that U.S oil consumption will rise between 252,000 and 881,000 barrels per day by 2035 under the Trump administration’s plan, or between 1.2% and 4.3% of the 20.4 million barrels of oil consumed in the U.S. each day this year.
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TRUMP DOWNPLAYS EFFECT ON OIL PRICES: President Trump sought to downplay the oil price spike that followed the attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure.
“They haven’t risen very much,” Trump told reporters Monday at the White House. “We have the strategic oil reserves which are massive and we can release a little bit of that and other countries, including Bahrain, but other countries can be a little bit more generous with the oil and you’ll bring it right down.”
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose as much as 18% — to $70.98 per barrel — before settling down and closing Monday at less than $62 per barrel. The initial spike was the biggest oil price increase since the 1991 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait ahead of the Gulf War.
TRUMP SAYS ‘I DON’T WANT WAR WITH ANYBODY’: The president retreated from the “locked and loaded” rhetoric of his Sunday night tweet, telling reporters, “I don’t want war with anybody,” and declining to name Iran as the country behind the drone and missile attack that crippled Saudi Arabia’s oil production capacity.
Trump touted America’s military might, boasting the U.S. has “the best fighter jets, the best rockets, the best missiles,” while insisting he’s not looking for a fight. “But with all of that being said, we’d certainly like to avoid it. I’m not looking to get into new conflict, but sometimes you have to,” he added.
Not ready to accuse Iran: While administration officials were telling reporters that the Saturday attack that cut Saudi oil production in half was launched from Iranian territory, Trump was more cautious. “As soon as we find out definitively, we’ll let you know, but it does look that way.”
“You’re going to find out in great detail in the very near future. We have the exact locations of just about everything. You’re going to find out at the right time. But it’s too early to tell you that now.”
PROPOSED FRACKING BANS MAY HURT DEMOCRATS IN 2020: Moving to ban fracking could make it harder for Democrats to win the White House, given that they need to win states heavily dependent on the shale boom to beat Trump, Josh reports in his latest magazine story.
“More thoughtful Democrats should support cost-effective ways to cut natural gas emissions, like better regulations on methane and greater incentives for deployment of carbon capture technology,” says Paul Bledsoe, former climate change adviser to President Bill Clinton.
Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris, among others, are taking a more aggressive approach than President Barack Obama, who embraced energy production while also seeking to improve the safety of fracking.
“It is one thing to talk about ending coal, where mining jobs are limited and geographically concentrated,” says Barry Rabe, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan who studies climate politics. “If you are talking about gas, there are a lot more jobs and a lot more people, and it takes you into more purple states and congressional districts.”
The rise of natural gas played a crucial role in cutting U.S. emissions over the last decade, especially in industrial swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, by displacing coal.
Fracking bans could be bad for emissions too: Arvind Ravikumar, an assistant professor of energy engineering at the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, says it’s “likely” emissions would increase if a president moves to ban fracking immediately, rather than phasing it out over a period of decades.
In the near term, coal use might increase to offset the loss of electricity from natural gas plants. That could increase emissions overall, even if fracking limits lowered emissions of methane.
It’s also challenging to replace gas use from buildings and in the manufacturing sector immediately, so that would likely require importing more fossil fuels.
While wind and solar are growing rapidly, the energy system needs more time to adapt to be run mostly on renewables.
DUKE ENERGY SETS NET-ZERO CARBON GOAL: The North Carolina-based utility, one of the largest in the U.S., announced the new net-zero carbon by 2050 goal for electricity generation Tuesday as part of an updated climate strategy. Duke Energy’s plans also include accelerating its emissions reductions in the near-term, aiming to double renewables and slash emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030.
The move is the latest signal that many utility companies aren’t just staying the course toward cleaner energy, but they may even redouble their efforts toward that transition. And it suggests that the Trump administration’s repeal and replacement of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan isn’t factoring much — if at all — into major utilities’ long-term plans.
“Getting to net-zero carbon emissions, while ensuring energy remains reliable and affordable, will require new technologies,” Duke Energy president, CEO, and chairman Lynn Good said in a statement. “That’s the very reason we need to act now.”
EPA ANSWERS ON POLLUTANT REVIEWS A BUNCH OF HOT AIR, DEMOCRATS SAY: House Democratic leaders on the energy and science committees are accusing the Environmental Protection Agency of trying to shortchange ongoing scientific reviews of air pollutants. And they want to know why Administrator Andrew Wheeler is recruiting outside consultants, instead of reinstating the panel of scientific experts the EPA has used in the past.
The Monday letter — led by Reps. Frank Pallone of New Jersey and Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, who chair the House energy and science committees, respectively — comes as the EPA recently announced its selection of 12 consultants to help the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee as it reviews the health impacts of particulate matter. That review will ultimately feed into the EPA’s next set of regulatory limits on the pollutant, which the agency has said it intends to complete by the end of 2020.
The EPA has claimed the advisory committee, along with the outside consultants, has enough resources and expertise to complete the particulate matter review. But House Democrats note the advisory committee has said the exact opposite, urging the agency for more resources and to reinstate the panel of experts.
A preview for Thursday: Wheeler appears before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology later this week, where he’s almost certain to get questions about this. House Democrats are using the back-and-forth over the air pollutant review as a main example of how the Trump EPA — first under former Administrator Scott Pruitt and now under Wheeler—is diminishing the role of independent science in policymaking.
SOLAR PROJECT PIPELINE AT ITS HEIGHT: The pipeline of utility solar projects is at its highest at 37.9 gigawatts, with 11.2 GW added in the first half of 2019, according to the latest update from the Solar Energy Industries Association and Wood Mackenzie. Residential solar installations also continued to grow, adding 600 MW of capacity in Q2 of 2019, the report says.
But even with the record-breaking utility solar pipeline, the report also cautions 2019 additions in utility-scale solar were 7% lower in Q2 of 2019 than in Q2 of 2018. Those declines are due to policy transitions and interconnection delays, the report says.
The report does anticipate some future growth in utility solar — due to favorable policies in places like New York and Maryland and increasing corporate commitments to 100% renewables. But the solar industry group is using the report to make the case to again extend federal tax credits for the technology.
An extension is a critical step to increase solar’s percentage of U.S. electricity generation to 20% by 2030, Abigail Hopper, president and CEO of SEIA said in a statement.
The tax credit — known as the investment tax credit, or ITC — is set to phase down over the next couple years as part of a bipartisan budget deal struck in 2015. Renewable energy groups, however, don’t want to let the tax credits go, and some Democrats in Congress are floating another extension.
The Rundown
Bloomberg Disrepair of US oil reserve may hamper its value in a crisis
Politico The oil industry vs. the electric car
Reuters: Cities to step up at UN to push climate fight, sustainable development
The Guardian: ‘The silenced’: meet the climate whistleblowers muzzled by Trump
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | SEPTEMBER 18
10 a.m. 2123 Rayburn. The House Energy and Commerce Climate Change Subcommittee holds a hearing on reducing industrial greenhouse gas pollution.
10 a.m. 2172 Rayburn. The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy, and the Environment and the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis hold a joint hearing on “voices leading the next generation on the global climate crisis.”
THURSDAY | SEPTEMBER 19
10 a.m. 2318 Rayburn. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler testifies in a hearing before the House Science Committee.
