LEE LEADING ENR REPUBLICANS? The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee could have a major shakeup amongst its Republican ranks if the current ranking member, Sen. John Barrasso, becomes the next GOP whip and steps down from the panel.
Who’s next in line: Committee chairs and ranking member positions are picked based on seniority amongst Senate Republicans, and the most senior member on the Republican side is Sen. James Risch. However, he is already the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and when asked if he would switch leadership positions to become the top GOPer on ENR, he declined.
But the next most senior member of ENR is Sen. Mike Lee – and he confirmed to the Washington Examiner he would be interested in seeking the top Republican slot on the panel.
A little about Lee: The Utah Republican arrived in the Senate in 2011 as part of the Tea Party wing of the conference, and quickly became known as a conservative rabble-rouser. A frequent flamethrower, Lee has hit Democrats on their energy and environment policies, blasting the Green New Deal proposal as the “legislative equivalent of Austin Powers’ Dr. Evil demanding ‘sharks with frickin’ lasers on their heads’” in a 2019 floor speech.
His policy stances: Hailing from the energy state of Utah, the senator has largely backed fossil fuel energy sources – so much so that he tweeted last year that to be against fossil fuels is to be “resisting humanity.” Fifty-three percent of Utah’s electricity generation is from coal-fired power plants, while the state has the fourth-highest number of producing oil and natural gas leases on federal lands, according to the EIA. Furthermore, Lee has focused on federal lands – introducing several pieces of legislation to water down the Antiquities Act, which provides cultural and natural resources legal protection on these lands.
Will there be a difference of leadership between Barrasso and Lee? Not by much, according to Frank Maisano, a senior principal at government relations firm Bracewell LLP.
“They have a very similar view on a lot of energy issues because of their regionality,” Maisano told the Washington Examiner. “Secondly, their personalities are somewhat similar too – they tend to be a little more conservative, they tend to be a little bit fierier, but also, I think both of them have a tendency to work with the other side as well.” Maisano noted, however, that Barrasso has shown a bit more bipartisanship than Lee.
Read on for more on Lee’s approach to the committee’s work, from his office…
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MORE ON LEE, FROM HIS OFFICE: Nancy asked Lee’s office for comment on his approach to the ENR committee, and his staff provided this statement:
“Senator Lee looks at ENR issues through the same lens he looks at every issue – federalism and separation of powers. This shapes his approach on both energy and resource management, especially in the context of public lands. Essentially, he believes that management of natural resources, conservation, and energy production is done better by state and local stakeholders that are better equipped to understand and manage their unique environmental and economic challenges. Unelected bureaucrats regulating access to land and energy production have divergent interests that are often detrimental to the people who are most impacted.”
“He will lead efforts to influence energy policy through legislation, rather than through executive action or judicial interpretation, and will reinforce the separation of powers by emphasizing Congress’s constitutional role in crafting and overseeing the implementation of energy and natural resources law. Expect him to focus on Antiquities Act and other public land management reforms, grid reliability, access to domestic mining and oil/gas production, access to western water and grazing, and active forest management.”
CHINESE STATE-OWNED ENERGY GIANT ANNOUNCES MAJOR OILFIELD DISCOVERY IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA: China’s state-owned oil and gas giant announced the discovery of a new light crude oil reserve in the South China Sea believed to contain as much as 100 million tons of oil equivalent—a major development that could help China, the world’s largest crude importer, reach a new level of energy independence.
The light crude discovery was made at the Kaiping South oilfield in the Pearl River Delta outside China’s Guangdong Province, China’s National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) said in a statement today announcing the news.
The oilfield is expected to yield roughly 7,680 barrels of light crude per day, and 520,000 cubic feet per day of natural gas.
CNOOC deputy chief Xu Changgui noted in a press release that the discovery is China’s first deep-water and deep-play oilfield with an in-place volume of 100 million tons.
Read more on the discovery here.
SOUTH AFRICA PLANS TO START KILLING BIRD-EATING MICE ON A REMOTE ISLAND NEXT YEAR: South Africa is finalizing plans for a $24 million mass mouse-eradication effort on the remote Marion Island—for which they will use helicopters to fly above the Indian Ocean and drop down poison from the sky, Bloomberg reports.
Eradicating the invasive mice, which are believed to have been introduced there some 200 years ago by 19th-century seal hunters, is an effort that has taken on new urgency in recent years, as warmer conditions and winters have failed to kill off as many rodents and led to a population boom.
According to researchers, which are the only human residents occupying Marion Island, the mice have now eaten their way through plants and invertebrate species. They’ve now turned to vulnerable and endangered species of seabirds for food, such as the gray-headed albatross, the snowy albatross, and the wandering albatross, threatening risk of local extinction.
The eradication effort on Marion Island is the largest of its kind and will kick off in 2025. Read more on that here.
GERMANY’S TOP PROSECUTOR TAKES OVER TESLA FIRE PROBE ON SUSPICIONS OF TERRORISM: Germany’s top prosecutor has taken the lead on investigating a fire outside the Tesla plant near Berlin amid new suspicions that a terrorist organization may have been involved.
A spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office said that any suspected involvement of a terrorist group is automatically kicked up the chain to federal prosecutors, rather than local offices, to handle the investigation.
The fire at the power site near Tesla’s EV facility in Gruenheide on Tuesday abruptly halted operations and triggered outages for tens of thousands of residents in the area—as well as at nearby hospitals and nursing homes.
While power to those areas has since been restored, the Tesla plant remains without electricity, and the company estimates that losses from the outage will be somewhere in the millions, according to the Associated Press.
Who’s responsible: Police are looking for information connected to individuals in the far-left Volcano Group organization, which claimed responsibility for the fire earlier this week and released a statement calling for the “complete destruction of the gigafactory.”
Tesla has faced intense backlash from environmental activists and residents after detailing its plans for a 24-acre expansion into the nearby forest area that would see construction of a freight depot, warehouses, and even an on-site company kindergarten. Read more on the investigation here.
RUNDOWN
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