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ANXIETY: Climate hawks are getting “anxious” that the window for passing big climate legislation is closing as infrastructure negotiations with Republicans drag on.
“OK, I’m now officially very anxious about climate legislation. I’ll admit I’m sensitive from the Obama climate abandonment, but I sense trouble,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the Rhode Island Democrat scarred by the failure of cap-and-trade in 2009-10, tweeted this morning.
Whitehouse argued that climate has “fallen out” of the infrastructure debate and called on the Biden administration to marshal support from big business and their trade associations to push a climate bill through a divided Congress.
Administration losing patience? Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, meanwhile, is striking a more impatient tone than some of her fellow administration officials about the state of bipartisan infrastructure negotiations, suggesting she supports pivoting soon to passing a more clean energy-centric bill with only Democratic votes through reconciliation.
“This has got to be done soon,” Granholm said yesterday on CNN’s State of the Union. “It’s just a bit perplexing why the Republicans haven’t moved further on critical pieces.… The clock is ticking. There is an endpoint to this discussion.”
Granholm criticized Republicans who claim to support clean energy investments such as spending on transmission lines to deliver renewable power and boosting next-generation nuclear reactors, but are opposing including these provisions in an infrastructure package.
Other Biden climate officials are stressing the infrastructure plan is critical to ensuring that President Joe Biden‘s climate agenda lasts beyond just this administration.
“We have to show that we’re not only all in, but that ‘all in’ is going to stick. That we have to build this into our decision making,” national climate adviser Gina McCarthy said this morning at the virtual American Clean Power Association’s virtual conference.
The Manchin problem: Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the centrist Democrat swing vote, said on the Sunday shows he’s “confident” of forging a deal with Republicans.
Manchin’s stance means Democrats don’t have the votes at the moment to proceed to a climate bill via reconciliation.
Could Manchin change? That could all change if Manchin, along with fellow centrist Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, pivots later on.
Researchers at ClearView Energy speculated in a note this morning that Manchin’s decision this weekend to come out in a very public way to oppose Democrats’ voting rights package could be a strategy to save-face and eventually support a party-line push for the American Jobs Plan.
“Manchin may be standing down from the For the People Act—an action that may resonate with Republican-leaning, Trump-supportive West Virginia voters even more than climate or energy—to offset future support for party-line passage of the Jobs Plan,” ClearView wrote.
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MEANWHILE, GRANHOLM AND MANCHIN PLAY NICE AT A COAL MINE: Manchin and Granholm toured an underground coal mine Friday as the duo sought to recognize West Virginia miners while pitching new opportunities in clean energy.
“Coal has powered our nation to greatness, and it is critical for the industry to seize on possibilities to apply innovation so we can create desperately needed jobs,” Manchin tweeted, with a nifty photo spread of him and Granholm decked out in hardhats.
“As Chairman of @EnergyDems one of my main goals is to ensure that our coal miners are not left behind as America transitions to a cleaner energy future,” Manchin added.
For her part, Granholm tweeted she was “bowled over” during her visit by the “potential” she saw in West Virginia pivoting to clean energy.
ILLINOIS NUCLEAR PLANTS FACE CLOSURE WITHOUT SUBSIDIES: The fate of at least two, and possibly three, unprofitable nuclear plants in Illinois are hanging in the balance after the state’s Democratic Legislature adjourned last week without an agreement on subsidizing the reactors to keep them alive, Josh wrote for a story posted over the weekend.
The Legislature is expected to return later this month to close the deal, as Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, legislators, environmental groups, and labor unions are motivated to preserve thousands of jobs associated with the plants and to maintain Illinois’ status as the largest producer of nuclear power, a central element of the state’s clean energy ambitions.
The debate in Illinois comes as the Biden administration and Congress are interested in pursuing a federal program giving nuclear plants tax credits or other subsidies, in order to keep America’s largest zero-carbon resource viable.
But Exelon is warning it will shut down two of its other nuclear plants, Byron and Dresden, in the rural northern part of the state this fall if it doesn’t get more help. That means federal assistance won’t be able to arrive in time.
The plants need to be refueled soon, but Exelon won’t proceed with that investment without assurance of state subsidies.
“Nothing at the federal level is going to happen in time to impact those decisions,” said Craig Piercy, CEO of American Nuclear Society.
BIDEN’S BUDGET WOULD AX FOSSIL FUEL TAX BREAKS: Biden is proposing to eliminate more than a dozen tax breaks for fossil fuel companies in an effort to align the tax code with his aggressive climate regulatory agenda.
It’s a welcome move for environmentalists and Democrats, who have long called for an end to fossil fuel subsidies. In fact, a clean energy tax proposal advanced by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee late last month targets many of the same favorable provisions for oil and gas companies as Biden.
However, oil and gas groups say removing those tax provisions would be a huge blow to the industry, especially for smaller producers operating on thin profit margins.
Specifically, Biden’s fiscal year 2022 budget request would scrap 13 tax provisions benefiting the fossil fuel industry. The Treasury Department estimates eliminating the provisions would save the federal government $35 billion over 10 years.
More on the provisions being targeted and how their elimination might affect domestic fossil fuel production in Abby’s story from over the weekend.
GRANHOLM….ADVERSARIES COULD SHUT DOWN GRID: Granholm warned yesterday that U.S. adversaries have the potential to shut down the power grid, after being asked about that possibility during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“Yeah, they do. I think that there are very malign actors who are trying. Even as we speak, there are thousands of attacks on all aspects of the energy sector and the private sector generally,” the secretary said.
Granholm’s comments follow two major cyberattacks, including the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, which went dark for six days in May after suffering a ransomware attack. Earlier this month, JBS USA, the world’s largest meat supplier, also shut down all of its U.S. beef plants after being hit with a cyberattack.
UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT UNLOADS ON BIDEN’S NS2 DECISION: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is accusing the Biden administration of providing “bullets” to Russia’s effort to undermine European energy security by deciding to stop trying to block the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
“This is a weapon, a real weapon … in the hands of the Russian Federation,” he told Axios in an interview posted yesterday. “It is not very understandable … that the bullets to this weapon can possibly be provided by such a great country as the United States.”
Ukraine considers Nord Stream 2 a national security threat because it would allow Russia to circumvent Ukraine and transport gas directly to Germany.
But the Biden administration recently chose not to sanction the Russian company in charge of constructing the pipeline in order to rehab strained relations with Germany, which sees the pipeline as in its commercial interest and opposes U.S. interference with its sovereignty.
Zelensky claims he learned about Biden’s decision through the press and was not given a heads-up by the administration.
“How many Ukrainian lives does the relationship between the United States and Germany cost?” Zelensky said.
ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE PEAKED LAST MONTH: Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached a monthly average of 419 parts per million last month, the highest level in 63 years (when accurate measurements began), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Scripps Institution of Oceanography announced this morning.
“We are adding roughly 40 billion metric tons of CO2 pollution to the atmosphere per year. That is a mountain of carbon that we dig up out of the Earth, burn, and release into the atmosphere as CO2 — year after year,” said Pieter Tans, a senior scientist with NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory, in a statement. Tans added that the world should prioritize slashing carbon emissions to zero as soon as possible.
According to NOAA, the last time atmospheric CO2 was at this level, more than 4 million years ago, sea levels were roughly 78 feet higher and temperatures were 7 degrees Fahrenheit hotter.
The peak in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels comes despite a large dip in global greenhouse gas emissions during the pandemic and economic lockdowns last year. As economies begin to recover, emissions have largely rebounded.
G7 FINANCE MINISTERS BACK MANDATORY CLIMATE DISCLOSURES: G7 finance ministers agreed over the weekend to support requirements for companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related risks.
The G7 finance ministers said mandatory climate disclosures should “provide consistent and decision-useful information for market participants” and should be based on a framework by the global Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told reporters over the weekend that the G7’s commitment on climate disclosures aims to “to facilitate the mobilization of private climate finance.” She said the G7’s statement is in line with the climate finance executive order Biden signed last month, and she added the United States hopes to advance work on climate disclosures within the broader G20.
In addition to climate disclosure, the G7 finance ministers highlighted the importance for financial firms to manage the financial risks posed by climate change “using the same risk management standards as applied to other financial risks.” That commitment includes the central banks of the G7 nations assessing the risks climate change poses to financial stability.
The Rundown
Wall Street Journal Solar power’s land grab hits a snag: environmentalists
Bloomberg Engine No. 1 pick is a different kind of climate activist
Reuters Market for US oil acreage booms along with crude price recovery
Wall Street Journal Businesses brace for more climate cases after ruling on Shell emissions
New York Times As disasters worsen, California looks at curbing construction in risky areas
Washington Post Biden administration moves to bring back endangered species protections undone under Trump
Calendar
TUESDAY | JUNE 8
10 a.m. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to consider the nominations of Tracy Stone-Manning to be director of the Bureau of Land Management, Shalanda Baker to be director of the office of minority economic impact at the Department of Energy, Samuel Walsh to be general counsel at the Department of Energy, and Andrew Light to be an assistant secretary of energy for international affairs.
10 a.m. SD-342 Dirksen. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing titled, “Threats to Critical Infrastructure: Examining the Colonial Pipeline Cyber Attack.”
1:05 p.m. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm delivers remarks on her vision for nuclear energy at the Nuclear Energy Institute’s Nuclear Energy Assembly.
WEDNESDAY | JUNE 9
10 a.m. 301 Russell. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing titled, “PFAS: the View from Affected Citizens and States.”
