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HOUSE GOP MOUNTS COUNTER-ATTACK TO DEMOCRATIC ANTI-DRILLING BILLS: House Republicans issued a counter-attack Wednesday against Democratic anti-drilling bills getting votes today and later this week.
Republican Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana with Natural Resources Committee ranking member Rob Bishop of Utah introduced the “American First Energy Act” which seeks to expand development of all types of energy — including renewables — on federal lands.
“By encouraging not just conventional energy development, but renewable and alternative sources like geothermal, wind, and solar, the American Energy First Act is an all-of-the-above solution that truly puts all American energy first,” Scalise said.
It does this primarily by simplifying permitting and giving more authority to states.
The legislation is comprehensive, containing components of previously released bills with bipartisan support.
That includes the Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act, which would streamline permitting of wind, solar, and geothermal energy on public lands by establishing a revenue-sharing mechanism from the energy production, and providing some of the revenue to reduce a backlog of renewable energy permits on public lands.
This is also about political gamesmanship: But like the Democratic anti-drilling bills, which won’t be considered by the Republican-controlled Senate, the House Republican counter-effort has a partisan flavor intended to set the terms of the energy and climate change debate as the 2020 presidential campaign intensifies.
The GOP bill would prevent presidents from banning new oil, gas and coal leases on federal land or water without congressional approval, a deliberate call-out to Democratic presidential candidates who have proposed to do this. It also looks to expand oil and gas production in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, which many House Republicans from Florida oppose given concerns about safety and harms to tourism.
The legislation contains no mention of climate change, although an aide for Natural Resources Committee Republicans argued to reporters that cutting off domestic oil and gas production as Democrats propose to do would lead to more imports from countries with dirtier energy.
“This bill is a complete Republican bill to put forth our alternative and give Americans a choice on which direction they prefer to go,” the aide said on a press call Wednesday. “This absolutely does take into account the best policy for worldwide emissions not just domestic.”
How Democrats will proceed: Democrats begin to make their move later this afternoon, with the House expected to vote on two bills that would permanently ban oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and extend a moratorium on drilling in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Then, the House will vote later this week on a bill barring drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, after Republicans repealed a long-time ban on energy development there in their 2017 tax law. (All of these bills have a few Republican co-sponsors, led by Francis Rooney of Florida, the co-chair of the Climate Solutions Caucus).
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REPUBLICAN PRO-CARBON TAX GROUP MAKES BID FOR BROADER SUPPORT: A Republican-backed group pushing for Congress to pass a federal carbon tax revealed new details about its proposal Wednesday in a bid to get more support.
Most significantly, the Climate Leadership Council, a group led by former Republican Secretaries of State James Baker III and George Shultz, stripped from its plan a provision that would have protected oil and gas companies from certain lawsuits based on their historical emissions.
Bipartisan-minded Democrats who favor a carbon tax, such as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, had dismissed legal immunity for industry as a non-starter.
“Our coalition recognized that was distracting from the many environmental and economic upsides of our plan,” Climate Leadership Council CEO Ted Halstead told Josh in an interview.
This has not caused businesses to flee: The proposal retains a second component of its so-called “grand bargain” to win over industry, keeping a plan to scrap or prevent carbon regulations of power plants and all other stationary sources imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, which would be duplicative with a tax.
Halstead insists the regulatory swap — not the legal protection — was the key to why oil and gas companies have endorsed the Climate Leadership Council carbon tax. The group announced two new members Wednesday, mining giant BHP Billiton and electricity generator Calpine, who join other supporters including Shell, ExxonMobil, BP, and ConocoPhillips.
“This would be by far the most pro-business climate package ever introduced in Congress,” Halstead said.
Other new details: The Climate Leadership Council proposal would impose a gradually rising carbon tax beginning at $40 per ton and return the money to American people through equal quarterly payments to offset higher energy prices.
The group added new details to that plan Wednesday, saying it intends to increase the carbon tax 5% every year. This would cut U.S. carbon emissions in half by 2035, a greater amount than what the Obama administration pledged to do under the Paris climate accord.
It also proposes to raise the annual increase of the tax higher than 5% if the carbon reduction goals are not achieved. Other alternative carbon tax proposals, by contrast, would restore power plant carbon regulations if emissions-cutting goals fail.
Halstead said he hopes Congress introduces bipartisan legislation mirroring the group’s proposal by the end of the year, in both chambers.
EIA PROJECTS US CARBON EMISSIONS TO BEGIN FALLING AGAIN AFTER SPIKE: U.S. energy-related carbon emissions will decline by 2.5% this year after emissions increased in 2018, the Energy Information Administration projected Tuesday.
EIA forcasts that cooling demand will be lower in 2019 than last year. In addition, natural gas and renewables are poised to continue to increase their share of electricity generation at the expense of coal.
The decline in emissions this year comes after U.S. emissions increased 2.8% in 2018 — the largest year-to-year rise since 2010.
EIA attributed higher emissions last year to an unusually hot summer and cold winter, and increased manufacturing activity.
NOAA CHIEF SAYS NO ONE GETTING FIRED FOR DORIAN FORECAST CONTROVERSY: No one at the National Weather Service is at risk of losing their jobs in connection to last week’s controversy over Hurricane Dorian’s chances of hitting Alabama, according to the top official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
During a speech Tuesday, NOAA acting Director Neil Jacobs disputed a report by the New York Times that said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross threatened to fire top officials at the NOAA if they did not crack down on forecasters who contradicted President Trump‘s warning over Labor Day weekend that Dorian could slam Alabama.
“There is no pressure to change the way you communicate forecast risk into the future. No one’s job is under threat: not mine, not yours. The Weather Service team has my full support and the support of the department,” Jacobs told a crowd of forecasters at a conference in Huntsville, Alabama.
The inspector general of the Commerce Department is reportedly investigating NOAA’s statement backing Trump’s telling of events and is asking agency officials to preserve files.
FORMER FEMA OFFICIALS ARRESTED OVER HURRICANE MARIA RELIEF EFFORT IN PUERTO RICO: Two former officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency were arrested on charges of bribery and fraud following a federal corruption investigation in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.
The former president of Cobra Acquisitions, a company that secured $1.8 billion in federal contracts to repair Puerto Rico’s destroyed power grid, was also arrested by the FBI, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, the U.S. attorney for Puerto Rico, said the defendants “decided to take advantage of the precarious conditions of our electric power grid and engaged in a bribery and honest services wire fraud scheme in order to enrich themselves illegally.”
AOC SAYS GREEN NEW DEAL WILL PROCEED IN PIECES: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday her Green New Deal proposal will move forward in pieces.
“One of the things I think is really exciting [is that] the legislation that we are planning on introducing is not one broad sweeping piece of legislation,” the first-term New York Democrat told reporters on Capitol Hill.
One of the first measures will promote the transition to electric vehicles, she said.
Ocasio-Cortez said she also plans to introduce a bill this month aimed at transitioning the U.S. to carbon-neutral buildings, which she called a “Green New Deal housing plan.”
NEW APPLIANCE STANDARDS BATTLE HEATS UP: A fight is breaking out over another set of the Energy Department’s appliance energy efficiency standards, this time for residential water heaters and commercial furnaces. The Energy Department is moving forward with plans that would alter Obama-era proposed efficiency limits, at the request of the natural gas industry.
Just last week, the Energy Department pulled back an Obama-era rule that would have expanded efficiency standards to cover types of incandescent lamps that had been excluded in the past. Efficiency groups estimated eliminating 2020 requirements for all light bulbs would increase greenhouse gas emissions by around 38 million metric tons each year.
Now, environmental groups and nearly a dozen Democratic state attorneys general are slamming the Energy Department’s move to create separate product classes for condensing and non-condensing heaters and furnaces. Non-condensing products are less efficient, and critics say creating a separate class for those units would delay stronger standards and keep those products in the market longer.
Big appliance makers like A.O. Smith Corp. and Lennox International are also objecting, saying the move could deter innovation in the appliance sector and increase regulatory burden on companies. Creating a new product class only adds to the number of efficiency regulations appliance makers must comply with, Lennox wrote in comments.
A coalition of California utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric Company, Southern California Edison, and Sempra Energy — are also urging the Energy Department to reverse course, as well as a coalition of 55 businesses including Adobe, eBay, Lyft, Unilever, and others led by Ceres.
The Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, though, is generally backing the Energy Department’s move. And natural gas groups, who brought the petition before the Energy Department to change the standards, say the agency isn’t going far enough.
INCLUDE CARBON CAPTURE MEASURE IN DEFENSE BILL, LAWMAKERS SAY: A bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging their colleagues leading the House and Senate committees on Armed Services to make sure a carbon capture measure makes it into the latest defense authorization bill when it heads to Trump’s desk.
The Senate passed the bill — known as the Utilizing Significant Emissions with Innovative Technologies, or USE IT, Act — as an amendment to its version of the National Defense Authorization Act. But the House didn’t include the USE IT Act in its version. Negotiations are ongoing to try to fit USE IT into a reconciled bill.
The bill, re-introduced earlier this year, would boost research funds for carbon capture and carbon removal, including for direct air capture to pull carbon from atmospheric air. The measure would also help to break down barriers for construction of carbon dioxide pipelines.
“Carbon capture and utilization technologies are critical tools for managing these climate change risks to military operations and installations and enjoy wide bipartisan support,” the more than a dozen lawmakers, led by Reps. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., and Marc Veasey, D-Texas, wrote.
The Rundown
Bloomberg Europe’s Green Deal seeks to anchor carbon neutrality into law
BBC: COP26: Glasgow to host UN climate change summit in 2020
New York Times Canada tries a forceful message for flood victims: live someplace else
Los Angeles Times Los Angeles OKs a deal for record-cheap solar power and battery storage
E&E News Glowing fish? Alaskans say ‘times have changed’
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | SEPTEMBER 11
2 p.m. 2128 Rayburn. A House Financial Services Committee subcommittee holds a hearing on the “macroeconomic impacts of a changing climate.”
2:30 p.m. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy holds a hearing to receive testimony on various energy bills.
THURSDAY | SEPTEMBER 12
9 a.m. to 3 p.m. 400 New Jersey Ave, NW. The American Petroleum Institute, the Center for LNG and “LNG Allies” host an event on “The Role of U.S. LNG in Addressing Global Challenges.” Energy Secretary Rick Perry, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol, and Senator Bill Cassidy, R-La., will give keynote addresses.
