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UTILITY GROUP CEO SAYS POPULAR NUCLEAR BILL COULD BE HIDING A BAILOUT: A popular Senate bill to advance nuclear energy could line the pockets of more conventional power plant owners, rather than pave a way for new, less expensive reactor types as intended.
John Shelk, the president and CEO of the merchant utility group Electric Power Supply Association, has raised the possibility of such a bailout ahead of Tuesday’s hearing in the Senate on the bill, the bipartisan Nuclear Energy Leadership Act introduced by Energy Committee chairwoman Lisa Murkowski and backed by high-profile Democrats like presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey.
Shelk tells John he will be sitting down with Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee staff as soon as this week to discuss changes to the bill to assure that it is narrowly focused on only advanced nuclear reactors and not the current fleet of reactors that are pushing for incentives in a challenging energy market.
What’s at issue: The bill would extend the contract time for federal power purchase agreements, which are used to secure electricity from a utility company for 10 to 40 years.
But the language is too open-ended and could benefit the existing fleet of reactors in addition to more advanced types, Shelk tells John.
Why the concern? Shelk’s group has been waging a national fight against state incentives for nuclear plants, and sees the bill becoming “yet another front in the fuels battles” to use government power to tip the scales in favor of less-economic resources like older nuclear plants.
In talking to sponsors of the bill, Shelk says he is “getting conflicting information … on why they want to keep the 40 year [power purchase agreement] open ended.”
Some offices say the idea is meant to make the federal contract fuel-neutral and open to other resources like geothermal and hydropower. But the problem is that a committee section-by-section summary of the bill describes nuclear power — not more advanced reactors — as “disadvantaged” when it comes to securing federal contracts. That raised the alarm for Shelk that the bill could be used as a means to give preferential treatment to all nuclear plants, undermining the free market system for electricity that supports competition.
Reminiscent of the Perry plan: Shelk says that when Energy Secretary Rick Perry was pushing for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to install market-based incentives to benefit coal and nuclear, the idea of using federal procurement rules to benefit generators was kicked around on the sidelines. Shelk and dozens of other groups opposed Perry’s push, and FERC rejected it in a unanimous vote.
Not everyone is a fan of the bill: Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said the bill offers a backward approach to nuclear power.
“I think we’ve got it backwards; let’s solve the waste problem and then talk about promoting nuclear power,” King said at Tuesday’s hearing.
Murkowski, in almost anticipation of the criticisms King raised, introduced a bill Tuesday evening to rekindle the federal government’s obligation to move waste from existing power plants.
The bill would look for alternatives to less politically viable projects like Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Meanwhile, the Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing on Wednesday on a bill to jumpstart a new repository program separate from Yucca Mountain. Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto, D-Nev., led the charge at the hearing on why the Yucca site was unworkable, citing its many structural flaws such as its proximity to a known earthquake fault.
Climate concerns should trump the need for the bill: “Time and money spent on unproven, new nuclear reactors is a distraction from the pressing need to address climate change,” Damon Moglen, senior strategic adviser at the left-leaning Friends of the Earth, tells John.
His group says the focus should be turned to zero-emission renewables, calling nuclear a “failed technology.”
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AHEAD OF PARIS VOTE, GOP ACCUSES DEMS OF WIDENING DIVISIONS ON CLIMATE: House Republicans on Wednesday morning accused Democrats of widening divisions between the parties on climate change by forcing a “show” vote on a bill requiring the U.S. to stay in the Paris agreement that Trump rejected.
“It’s easy to vote on a messaging bill,” said Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, in a speech on the House floor. “It’s difficult to leave the echo chambers and work across the aisle.”
The House is debating amendments to the bill Wednesday, before a vote that will likely occur Thursday. The White House has threatened to veto the bill, and it won’t be considered in the GOP-controlled Senate.
Democratic boosters of the bill, which has 224 co-sponsors, all Democrats, say the bill is an important first step to showcase their prioritizing of climate change ahead of the 2020 election, and to contrast the approach with inaction from Trump and congressional Republicans.
The U.S. is far away from reaching the emissions reduction target that the Obama administration set under the Paris deal.
“I have renewed hope,” said Rep. Dan Lipinksi, D-Ill., speaking on the House floor Wednesday. “[The bill] a good first step, but much more needs to be done. We know as Americans we can get this done and we must do it. Now is the time for us to act.”
A NEW CRISIS ON THE BORDER: Presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris and Sen. Dianne Feinstein are raising alarm about the environmental crisis on the border.
They and other lawmakers called on the State Department, EPA, Customs and Border Protection, and Army Corps of Engineers to pull together a plan to combat a “pollution crisis” on the California-Mexico border. The collapse of a sewage treatment plant in Tijuana, Mexico, just south of San Diego, has led to millions of gallons of polluted wastewater to flow into the U.S., affecting the health of their constituents.
“[The flows are] only one recent example of the dire environmental conditions vulnerable populations along the border experience,” the letter reads. “Air pollution resulting from agricultural burns, diesel fumes, a shrinking Salton Sea and other sources emanates throughout the Imperial Valley and contributes to high rates of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease, and stroke.”
DISAGREEMENT OVER CLIMATE CHANGE COULD DERAIL INFRASTRUCTURE DEAL: Trump and Democratic leaders emerged from a White House meeting Tuesday promising to find a way to finance a $2 trillion infrastructure spending package, but the two sides continue to bicker over the role of climate change and environmental rules.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer released a statement after the meeting repeating their demand that an infrastructure deal contains elements “addressing climate change with clean energy, clean transportation and resilient infrastructure.”
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, also told reporters there was “some discussion of a more efficient energy grid to transmit energy over longer distances. There was some discussion of renewable energy, but no specifics on those.”
He is presumably referring to building more transmission lines, which are key to delivering wind and solar from rural places where the electricity is generated to urban population centers.
The White House is signaling different priorities: White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who did not participate in the meeting with Democrats, said Tuesday he has advised the president to push for environmental deregulation so new projects could get built within two years.
“I want to change the environmental laws, how do you feel about that as a Democrat?” Mulvaney told reporters outside Milken Institute’s Global Conference in California. “It’s going to be a very difficult place for them to go. I think that may be the place where the discussions break down.”
Separately, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway has warned Democrats to not repackage provisions of the Green New Deal as part of an infrastructure bill.
EPA SAYS GLYPHOSATE DOESN’T CAUSE CANCER, CONTRADICTING COURT RULINGS: The EPA said Tuesday that glyphosate, a chemical used in weedkillers, does not cause cancer, in a decision that contradicts prior court rulings.
“EPA has found no risks to public health from the current registered uses of glyphosate,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler.
The company Bayer, which produces the weedkiller Roundup, has faced thousands of lawsuits from users of the product who say exposure to the chemical caused their cancer.
A California jury last August found agriculture business giant Monsanto liable for causing a groundskeeper’s cancer in the world’s first ruling on the health effects of Roundup. Monsanto was recently purchased by Bayer. A federal jury in San Francisco this March awarded $80 million to another California man who claimed his use of Roundup contributed to his cancer.
BERNHARDT TO TESTIFY BEFORE NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE: Recently-confirmed Interior Department Secretary David Bernhardt has committed to testify May 15 before the House Natural Resources Committee on the agency’s budget request.
Bernhardt has met privately with several members of the committee. Democrats are also eager to question Bernhardt about ethics issues, after Interior’s inspector general confirmed it has opened an investigation.
CLIMATE CHANGE THE TOP ISSUE FOR DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY VOTERS, POLL SAYS: Climate change is the top issue of concern for Democratic voters polled in a survey conducted by CNN released Tuesday.
Ninety-six percent of the 411 Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents who were polled said it’s very or somewhat important for 2020 presidential candidates to take “aggressive action” to combat climate change. That’s the highest percentage for any issued polled, ahead of “Medicare-for-All,” gun control, and tuition free-college.
The Rundown
Reuters The debate behind Trump’s move to tighten Iran oil sanctions
Bloomberg Gas tax for infrastructure sparks fears of political backlash
Los Angeles Times Hydropower bill would sabotage California’s clean energy mandate, critics say
Argus Media Interior close to revising offshore drilling safety rule
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | May 1
9:45 a.m., 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. American Climate Leadership Summit kicks off in Washington with panels on clean energy breakthroughs, energy efficiency, and energy storage.
THURSDAY | May 2
10 a.m., 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to consider the following nominations: Daniel Jorjani to be solicitor of the Department of the Interior; and Mark Lee Greenblatt to be the inspector general of the Department of the Interior.
