Daily on Energy: Ernst lobbies Trump not to undercut ethanol boost with trade wars

Ernst told John in an interview on Friday that she sees both issues as crucial for the U.S. farmer and Iowa.

Ernst is in constant contact with the EPA as it pursues an expedited schedule to enact new rules to allow 15% ethanol fuel blends to be sold year-round. She is also pressing the White House to wrap up a trade deal soon with China, or risk further harm to Iowa farmers and rural America.

She sees both E15 and getting the trade deals done as irrevocably linked.

E15 provides a greater market for ethanol and will be “wonderful” for corn farmers, Ernst said. “But it certainly doesn’t counteract some of the depression we’ve seen in the overall farm market by trade deals that have not been finalized and the tariff issue,” she added, noting the devastating effects of retaliatory tariffs by China and other countries.

Trump massively escalated the trade dispute with China on Monday by announcing new tariffs.

Challenges for Trump’s ethanol plan: The E15 rule being developed at EPA would lift restrictions that limit the amount of ethanol allowed to be sold in gasoline year round from 10 to 15%. Currently, E15’s higher Reid vapor pressure only allows it to be sold from the fall to just after Memorial Day.

The EPA proposed rule would lift those restrictions to allow consumers to choose higher ethanol blends year-round. But the problem for Ernst and the ethanol industry is the several other pieces of the EPA rule that could delay the agency from rolling out the new regulations by June 1, as promised by the president.

Split the rulemaking: Ernst wants EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to issue two rulings, instead of passing one large new regulation with both the E15 year-round waiver and the other pieces that propose new market rules in the hopes of lowering costs for refiners.

Two separate actions would ensure that the E15 provisions are implemented quickly, while waiting on the other pieces of the rule that are more complicated and could take longer to develop.

“The greater thought is that they should be addressed separately,” Ernst said.

“I would hate to have them all tied together because these changes need to occur in the future, but we want to make sure that E15 is available year round,” she explained.

So far, EPA is assuring her that the agency is on track to issue the E15 waiver by June 1, but she has not heard from Wheeler on whether he would seriously consider a bifurcated rule, the senator said.

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HOUSE ENERGY COMMITTEE REPUBLICANS GET INTO THE CLIMATE GAME: The top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are looking to engage with the Democratic majority on climate change, promoting private sector innovation as an alternative to regulation, taxes, or mandates.

“I got tired of having the Democrats try to define what the Republicans were for or not for,” said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., the top GOP member on the committee. “We wanted to define it.”

Walden, the former chairman of the GOP campaign arm, and his second-in-command as the top Republican on the Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee, Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois, described their climate change agenda in a rare joint interview with Josh on Capitol Hill.

Since the rollout of the Left’s “Green New Deal,” the GOP leaders of the committee have shifted their tone, with polls showing increasing awareness even among Republicans of worsening weather events and their connection to climate change.

“I would say we come at it from the sense we believe in innovation and have actually moved policies forward that have become law,” Walden said, contrasting his approach to that of Democrats.

The devil is in the details: But pressed for details on policies they’d support moving forward, Walden and Shimkus provided few. The duo stressed their support for aspects of a framework to address climate change that their Energy Committee colleague, Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., released in March.

However Walden and Shimkus said they won’t join the two House Republicans, Reps. Francis Rooney of Florida and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who support a carbon tax.

Read more of Josh’s report in this week’s Washington Examiner magazine.

POMPEO REJECTS THE NEED TO MAKE CLIMATE CHANGE PART OF ARCTIC TALKS: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says climate change won’t be part of discussions when it comes to the Arctic and collaboration with other countries.

Pompeo refused to discuss climate change during a meeting of the Arctic Council. Instead, he said the Trump administration is focused on “human health” and the innovation necessary to improve it, while downplaying the significance of the 2015 Paris climate change agreement.

“I’m sure it was a good party. I’m sure it felt good to sign the agreement,” he said. “But at the end of the day, what matters to human health, what matters to the citizens of the world, is that we actually have an impact on improving health.”

The Arctic Council is an international collaborative body formed by countries who share territory in the Arctic Circle. The 11th meeting of the council concluded this morning, with Iceland taking the chairmanship over the next two-year period.

SENATE DEMOCRATS PROBE TRUMP’S U.N. NOMINEE FOR CLIMATE VIEWS: A trio of Senate Democrats are pressing Kelly Knight Craft, Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations, to clarify her views on climate change.

Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and Jeff Merkley of Oregon asked her to share her views on the Paris climate change agreement, as well as “potential conflicts of interest” she might have.

The U.N. ambassador nominee’s husband, Joe Craft, is the president and CEO of Alliance Resource Partners, the third largest coal producing company in the Eastern U.S.

“We need assurances that, in connection with U.N. activities related to climate change, you will put your nation’s interest ahead of your personal financial interests,” the senators said.

The senators say they are concerned that Craft once said she believes “both sides” of climate science. They note Craft’s financial disclosures shows she has more than $63 million invested in oil, gas, and coal assets.

AOC TO RALLY WITH SUNRISE MOVEMENT FOR GREEN NEW DEAL IN WASHINGTON: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., plans to headline a rally next week sponsored by a group of young activists in Washington, D.C. to promote her Green New Deal.

The May 13 rally at Howard University is the final stop on the Sunrise Movement’s “Green New Deal Tour,” the New York Times reported Monday.

The Sunrise Movement is a group of young climate change activists that has allied itself with freshman sensation Ocasio-Cortez on her proposal to quickly eliminate the use of fossil fuels and achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

The group has led protests in the offices of Democratic leaders, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has not endorsed the Green New Deal, pressing for more aggressive action.

Sunrise has also pressured 2020 presidential candidates to pledge to reject donations from fossil fuel interests.

BIPARTISANSHIP IN INVESTIGATING POSSIBLE HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES BY ANTI-POACHING GROUPS: The Democratic chairman on the House Natural Resources Committee joined with the panel’s top Republican on Monday in asking for a review of whether federal funding for anti-poaching efforts to protect endangered species has led to human rights abuses.

House Natural Resources Committee chairman Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., and ranking member Rob Bishop, R-Utah, asked Monday for a review of federal funding for anti-poaching efforts in the wake of reports that anti-poaching organizations have committed severe human rights abuses in efforts to protect wildlife by harming indigenous tribes and peoples.

“Despite the importance of protecting wildlife and preventing species extinction, the United States must not be party to violations of basic human rights,” they said in a letter to the GAO. They want the GAO to prepare a list of which organizations receiving federal funding to protect species have engaged in human rights abuses.

The letter was sent on the same day a major U.N. report showed that human activity is doing irreversible harm to the planet’s ecosystems and wildlife.

FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS EPA TO IMPLEMENT LANDFILL EMISSIONS RULE: A federal judge ruled Monday that the EPA failed to fulfill its obligations under the Clean Air Act to implement Obama-era regulations to reduce methane emissions from landfills, ordering the agency to take action.

The judge, representing the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, said EPA unlawfully refused to implement the 2016 rules and required EPA to finalize state plans to reduce landfill pollution no later than September 6 of this year, and to finalize a federal plan no later than November 6 for states that did not submit plans. Landfills are the nation’s third-largest source of methane pollution.

A coalition of eight states, led by California, had sued the EPA.

The Rundown

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Bloomberg Canada likely to proceed with with Trans Mountain pipeline expansion

The Oregonian Oregon DEQ denies Jordan Cove LNG water quality permit

Calendar

TUESDAY | May 7

12:15 p.m., 529 14^th Street NW. The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America Foundation will host an on-the-record briefing Tuesday to release its 2019 flagship study, The Role of Natural Gas in the Transition to a Lower-Carbon Economy.

3 p.m., 2362-A Rayburn. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt testifies before the House Appropriations Committee’s Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee on the fiscal 2020 budget.

WEDNESDAY | May 8

10 a.m., 2322 Rayburn. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee holds a hearing on legislation to ban asbestos.

2:30 p.m., 222 Russell. The Senate Armed Service Committee’s strategic forces panel holds a hearing on “Department of Energy’s Atomic Defense Activities and Programs.”