Subscribe today to the Washington Examiner magazine and get Washington Briefing: politics and policy stories that will keep you up to date with what’s going on in Washington. SUBSCRIBE NOW: Just $1.00 an issue!
SCOTUS BACKS PENNEAST PIPELINE IN EMINENT DOMAIN CASE: The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 this morning that the developers of the $1 billion PennEast natural gas pipeline can seize New Jersey land to build the project, granting a big win to the oil and gas industry.
The decision did not break along usual lines, with Republican appointees chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh voting in the majority with Democratic appointees Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, both appointees of former President Donald Trump, dissented along with Clarence Thomas, the most conservative justice, and Democrat appointee Elena Kagan.
Roberts, in the majority opinion, wrote that the decision rested on the idea that when New Jersey ratified the Constitution in 1787, it “surrendered their immunity from the exercise of the federal eminent domain.” Roberts added that the 1938 Natural Gas Act allows the federal government to give individual properties “the ability to condemn property in court.”
The ruling reverses a Third Circuit appeals court decision that project developer PennEast couldn’t seize New Jersey-owned land for the pipeline.
FERC previously authorized the project under the Natural Gas Act, allowing the company to use federal eminent domain power. But the state of New Jersey challenged the project on sovereign-immunity grounds.
PennEast’s 116-mile pipeline would transport as much as 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from northern Pennsylvania to New Jersey.
Why the ruling matters: The PennEast case was closely watched by the oil and gas industry, which feared letting the appeals court decision stand would have given states effective veto power over natural gas pipeline projects.
The Consumer Energy Alliance, a pro-industry group, called the Supreme Court decision “monumental” and “far more important than a single pipeline” because it prevents a state from placing “needs and political motivations” above those of neighboring states and “the greater national good.”
Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the Democratic chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, rued that the “disturbing decision sets the dangerous precedent of allowing interstate pipelines to take State-owned lands without a State’s consent.”
“I am determined to work with my colleagues to do everything in our power to preserve this important State right,” Pallone said in a statement.
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal pledged to continue fighting the pipeline.
“We still have other, ongoing legal challenges to this proposed pipeline, which is unnecessary and would be destructive to New Jersey lands,” Grewal, a Democrat, said in a statement.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe) and Abby Smith (@AbbySmithDC). Email [email protected] or [email protected] for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
WHITE HOUSE DEFENDS CLIMATE PROVISIONS: The Biden administration tried yesterday to fight back howls from climate activists who say his bipartisan infrastructure deal doesn’t do enough to curb emissions.
“I would dispute the notion that it doesn’t do anything for climate, which some are arguing,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki at her daily briefing.
Psaki said the proposal tasks “enormous steps” in investing in transmission lines, along with spending on electric buses and charging stations.
She promised President Joe Biden would push for more expansive climate policies in a forthcoming Democratic reconciliation bill, including “an investment in clean energy tax credits.”
Psaki did not say when asked if the White House wants to see a clean electricity standard in a reconciliation package.
Biden himself, meanwhile, penned an op-ed touting the bipartisan infrastructure deal for taking a “crucial step forward in building our clean energy future.” He acknowledged some “critical” climate initiatives are missing, but said he intends to pass those in the reconciliation bill.
Not enough for activists: The administration’s attempt at providing reassurance did not appease the environmental group Evergreen Action, which in response to Psaki’s comments panned the bipartisan infrastructure deal as “not a climate bill” that fails to get “anywhere close to living up to the president’s commitments.”
HOUSE DEMOCRATS TO ADVANCE INFRASTRUCTURE BILL: The House will vote on a $547 billion surface transportation bill authored by Democrats this week that calls for huge investments in transit and rail to reduce the nation’s reliance on road travel, the Washington Examiner’s Susan Ferrechio reports.
The bill, which would authorize more than $200 billion for mass transit and other initiatives to reduce carbon emissions, will hit the House floor as the two parties struggle to keep a separate infrastructure deal authored in the Senate intact.
The package, spent over five years, provides $109 billion for transit and $95 billion for rail — including a tripling of funding to Amtrak. It also provides $4 billion for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, while encouraging states to repair existing roads rather than build new ones.
What’s the point? The Democrat-led House is expected to pass the measure alongside a water infrastructure bill without many GOP votes, but it won’t become law. Instead, it will represent a marker for negotiations with the Senate should it pass an infrastructure bill.
The National Resources Defense Council praised the measure as “an essential down payment on President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan, wedding climate action to equitable recovery at a time when the country needs both.”
Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, said the bill “lays the groundwork” for Biden’s larger infrastructure package.
WHERE’S GRANHOLM? Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is in New York City today, after conveniently taking Amtrak to get there last night, to discuss the Biden-backed bipartisan infrastructure deal.
Granholm is attending a ribbon cutting for an EV charging “superhub” in Brooklyn, along with touring a solar co-operative and participating in a roundtable discussion with Climate Jobs New York.
POST-SCOTUS RULING, BIOFUELS GROUPS PUT THE PRESSURE ON EPA: The Supreme Court gave small oil refiners a significant win on Friday, ruling that the EPA has broad authority to grant them exemptions from the Renewable Fuels Standard even if prior exemptions have lapsed. Biofuels producers are insisting, however, that it isn’t as huge a blow to them.
“We certainly don’t envision that Friday’s decision will reopen the floodgates on small refinery exemptions like we saw under the previous administration,” Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, told reporters in a press call yesterday.
Instead, Cooper and other biofuels advocates told reporters the Supreme Court only addressed a narrow issue from a federal appeals court ruling last year restricting the EPA’s ability to grant exemptions. The Supreme Court left the other two “pillars” of that ruling in place, meaning the EPA must abide by them, the advocates said.
“EPA has plenty of tools left in the toolbox to restore sanity to the small refinery exemption program,” Cooper said.
Even so, biofuels groups will be closely scrutinizing the Biden administration’s actions on the RFS. Biden is already facing pressure from Democratic senators and governors with small refineries in their states to offer some relief from the federal biofuels blending requirements.
The biofuels groups say they’d like to see a definitive policy statement from the Biden EPA about how it will proceed on possible exemptions following the Supreme Court ruling.
INTERIOR TO ADVANCE LARGER VINEYARD WIND PROJECT: The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced yesterday it was issuing a notice of intent for the larger Vineyard Wind South offshore wind project, a move that opens a public comment period and signals the agency will soon move forward with an environmental review.
Last month, the Biden administration greenlit the first of Vineyard Wind’s projects, marking the first large-scale offshore wind project approved in the U.S. That project, off the shores of Massachusetts, will consist of up to 84 turbines that will collectively power more than 400,000 homes and businesses.
The proposed Vineyard Wind South project would be significantly larger — with up to 130 turbines, between two and five offshore power substations, and cables to bring the power to shore. The project would total roughly 2 to 2.3 gigawatts of power.
The Biden administration has been aggressively pursuing offshore wind, with Biden setting a goal for the U.S. to deploy 30 GW by 2030. In addition to the Vineyard Wind approval, the administration is advancing offshore wind opportunities off the California coast and is exploring the possibility of projects in the Gulf Coast. The administration could also soon move forward with Dominion Energy’s proposed project off the shores of Virginia Beach, the largest proposed commercial project to date.
BIPARTISAN INCENTIVES FOR HYDROPOWER: Sens. Maria Cantwell and Lisa Murkowski introduced legislation yesterday that would offer federal tax incentives for the maintenance and upgrade of hydroelectric dams, as well as the removal of dams that are past their useful life.
The legislative proposal mirrors recommendations made jointly by the hydropower industry and several conservation groups in April as part of a $63 billion hydropower-focused infrastructure proposal. In that proposal, the groups estimated stronger support specifically for dam removal efforts could prompt the removal of 2,000 obsolete structures and open up 20,000 miles of rivers.
The groups — the National Hydropower Association, American Rivers, The Nature Conservancy, and the Low Impact Hydropower Institute — are calling on Biden and Congress to include support for hydropower, an oft-overlooked clean energy resource, in any infrastructure measure.
“The infrastructure plans under consideration in Congress present a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” the groups wrote in a joint statement. “Urgent investments are needed to improve dam safety, including removing dams determined by their owners to have outlived their usefulness.”
RENEWABLE GROUPS PUSH COMPETITIVE POWER MARKET IN SOUTHEAST: Establishing a competitive wholesale power market would lower consumer electricity costs and allow for greater renewable energy deployment than the energy market framework more than a dozen Southeast utilities are proposing to form, renewable energy groups said in a new report this morning.
The Southeast is one of the few regions in the country that isn’t governed by a wholesale power market, and 17 utilities in the region have proposed to formalize a power-sharing agreement — known as the Southeast Energy Exchange Market, or SEEM — across the region to help balance electricity load across states.
Renewable energy groups, however, caution that the SEEM lacks the benefits that other traditional power market designs offer, including mechanisms that help achieve the lowest electricity prices for consumers and increase integration of renewable energy.
“The current proposal doesn’t scratch the surface of what’s possible when it comes to creating a market, and we will continue to work with Southeastern states to promote a more effective alternative,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, head of the Solar Energy Industries Association, one of the groups behind the report. The report was also prepared by the American Council on Renewable Energy and the American Clean Power Association.
The Rundown
Wall Street Journal Democrats in oil country worried by party’s natural-gas agenda
Bloomberg How last century’s oil wells are messing with Texas right now
New York Times It’s some of America’s richest farmland. But what is it without water?
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | JUNE 30
1:30 p.m. The House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis will hold a remote hearing titled “Transportation Investments for Solving the Climate Crisis.
