- Wall Street Journal: Major oil companies may prefer takeovers to E&P, analysts say
- Huffington Post: Poll: Keystone XL support divided along partisan lines
- Morning Consult: EPA Battered Over Budget
- Washington Examiner: McConnell unveils surprise attack on EPA power plant rule
- Bloomberg BNA: Clean Power Plan Points Utilities Toward ‘Inevitable’ Low-Carbon Future, McCarthy Says
POLITICO Morning Energy for 4/30/2015
By DARIUS DIXON, with help from Alex Guillén
McCONNELL’S NEW CLIMATE CHECKPOINT: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell went head-to-head with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy yesterday afternoon, and the Kentucky Republican whipped out a new roadblock for the agency’s Clean Power Plan, Pro Energy’s Alex Guillén reports. McConnell floated a new legal argument that states seeking to create multistate compliance plans — an option often raised by the rule’s supporters as perhaps the easiest and cheapest way to comply — would have to get across his own desk first.
And the last time you fingered through the Clean Air Act was…?: McConnell read aloud from section 102(c) of the Clean Air Act, which defines the “Consent of Congress to compacts” section of the law, and says that such agreements between states won’t be “binding or obligatory upon any State … unless and until it has been approved by Congress.” And you can pretty much guess the next part. “I can assure you that as long as I’m majority leader of the Senate, this body’s not going to be signing off on any backdoor energy tax,” McConnell said. McCarthy didn’t directly respond to McConnell’s newest roadblock, but reiterated that she expected that the rule due out this summer would survive any legal challenges.
Jeff Holmstead, who led EPA’s air office during the George W. Bush administration, told POLITICO in an email that McConnell’s 102(c) argument is “a big problem that EPA hasn’t addressed.” Alex has more for Pros: http://politico.pro/1bETtVs
If you’re like ME and want to read the section for yourself: http://bit.ly/1Kvhudx
ENERGY COMMITTEES. ROLLOUT! Both energy committees in Congress are settling in for some big talk on legislation this morning. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s panel plans to tackle nearly two dozen efficiency bills while Reps. Fred Upton and Ed Whitfield are hunkering down to discuss efficiency and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
— Senate Energy and Natural Resources: Murkowski has lined up 22 energy efficiency measures from more than a dozen of her colleagues for today’s hearing. Five senators will testify about their bills at the hearing and will be followed by witnesses from five organizations, including the Energy Department’s efficiency chief Kathleen Hogan. Murkowski has been soliciting proposals to build a broad package of energy legislation that will include four titles: efficiency, infrastructure, supply, and accountability. She’s also open to including portions of the Obama administration’s Quadrennial Energy Review in the eventual bundle. Proposals are expected to go through the committee process, but that doesn’t mean they’ll make it into the final product. Murkowski’s office is expected to announce a series of May hearings tomorrow to discuss the titles of the energy bill she hopes to produce. Today’s hearing starts at 10 a.m. in Dirksen 366.
An ENR subcommittee gavels in at 2:30 p.m. to discuss the Bureau of Land Management’s fracking rule.
I can’t pass this up: Tennessee must have quite the ceiling fan lobby. As we mentioned earlier this week, Rep. Marsha Blackburn has introduced measures to defund DOE’s work to improve the efficiency of ceiling fans in recent years. So, it stood out to ME that one of the bills on the ENR agenda today is one from Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander to “remove the authority of the Secretary of Energy to amend or issue new energy efficiency standards for ceiling fans.”
— House Energy and Commerce: The Energy and Power subcommittee plans to mull over two pieces of draft legislation, one dealing with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (http://1.usa.gov/1JC4h53) and another on energy efficiency (http://1.usa.gov/1bg2lQO). DOE assistant secretary for fossil energy Chris Smith is set to discuss the SPR and reforms to the program offered in the QER last week. During the second panel, seven witnesses will take on efficiency, and the American Gas Association’s frustration over DOE’s proposed furnace rule appears to get some air time today. The group’s former chairman, John Somerhalder, now with AGL Resources, is testifying on AGA’s behalf and plans to hit on that rule, and support the bill overall. On the other end is Elizabeth Noll, with the Natural Resources Defense Council, who plans to push back a bit. “Some of these provisions will lead to energy savings for American taxpayers and the federal government’s leadership will translate to innovation in the private sector as well. However a number of these provisions will reverse the great progress we’ve made and harm,” her prepared remarks say, pointing to three sections, including the one on furnace regulations. The hearing starts at 10:15 a.m. in Rayburn 2322.
IT’S THURSDAY (and the last day of April)! I’m Darius Dixon, and your morning host wants to apologize for making a quantum tunneling reference is yesterday’s edition. No one complained — and I hope a few of you Googled the term if you didn’t know it — but I have to wonder how many heads I flew over with that one. Send your energy news, tips and commentary to ddixon@politico.com, and follow us on Twitter @dariusss, @Morning_Energy and @POLITICOPro.
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MINI IS GREATER THAN NONE: President Barack Obama is slated to put pen to paper on S. 535, the Energy Efficiency Improvement Act — aka “mini”-Portman-Shaheen — in a signing ceremony this afternoon. Aides to Sens. Rob Portman and Jeanne Shaheen told ME that both lawmakers plan to attend. The Senate approved the bill last month, while the House passed companion legislation last week on a voice vote. The package includes a section exempting large grid-enabled electric resistance water heaters from updated Energy Department conservation standards that took effect Thursday. The exemption — backed by electric co-operatives, environmentalists and efficiency advocates — will allow manufacturers to resume making the water heaters, which can’t meet the new standards but are used in thermal storage and rural demand response programs. The signing ceremony is scheduled to be held in the Oval Office at 2:55 p.m.
From the history books: “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in politics, it’s never to turn your back on a crumb.” — Hubert Humphrey.
THURSDAY AT BERNIE’S: Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders is ready to officially announce his candidacy for the White House around noon today. He plans to run as a Democrat, which gives him an opportunity to pull Hillary Clinton to the left during the primaries. Don’t know where Clinton on the Keystone XL oil pipeline? Well, Sanders is opposed to it. He also wants to ban fracking.
ENERGY AMENDMENTS TRICKLE IN: Amendments to the House’s $35.4 billion fiscal 2016 energy and water spending bill began pouring in last night. Several amendments — mostly affecting the Army Corps of Engineers — were approved by voice votes last night and several others are poised for roll call votes later today. A full reading of the bill wasn’t complete before the House gaveled out for the night around 11:30 p.m., which means there are still plenty of DOE-related amendments to come. Depending on how efficient they can be, the energy and water bill should wrap up by tomorrow.
There’s some drama going on with the military construction and veterans spending bill: http://politi.co/1bggM7p
MURKOWSKI, HEITKAMP TALK UP AMENDMENT LIFTING OIL EXPORT BAN: Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski has picked up three co-sponsors for her amendment to the Iran sanctions bill that would lift the U.S. ban on crude oil exports, but where it goes is another story. Murkowski took to the floor yesterday afternoon with North Dakota Democrat Heidi Heitkamp to talk up the measure, which has also garnered the support of Republicans John Hoeven and James Lankford. The decades-old ban on exports is a “de facto sanctions regime against ourselves,” Murkowski said. “It simply does not make sense for us to lift sanctions on Iranian oil while we keep them on American oil.”
— Murkowski spokesman Robert Dillon told ME there is still no news on whether the amendment — which directs DOE to study Iranian and U.S. oil export potential before ultimately lifting the U.S. export ban — will get a vote. At least four amendments are pending on today’s agenda but Murkowski’s doesn’t seem to be one of them. She must convince Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, who happens to be a vocal supporter of lifting the ban but is trying to maintain bipartisan support.
STATES, GREENS DEFEND McCARTHY ON CLIMATE RULE STATEMENTS: A group of states and environmental groups supportive of EPA’s carbon rule for power plants are coming to the defense of Administrator Gina McCarthy and her Twitter account. States opposed to the rule last Friday sent a letter to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is mulling an early legal challenge to the rule, pointing out that McCarthy has continued to make public statements indicating that states should prepare for a final rule. But the supportive states and greens argue that those public statements shouldn’t matter because regulations should only be challenged in a final version, and not before. “Rather than the bright-line test of a rule’s promulgation triggering judicial review of all aspects of the rulemaking, petitioners would have the Court engage in a guessing game to divine the agency’s intended final action by reviewing assorted statements from agency officials and even social media posts,” they write: http://politico.pro/1DLd0Ld
FAST WIND, SLOW QUARTER: The U.S. added 131 megawatts of wind power in the first quarter, according to a market report out today from the American Wind Energy Association. That quarterly figure is pretty low, even though first quarters typically see lower installations. The U.S. added 217 megawatts in Q1 2014, though installations pale in comparison to 2012’s Q1 installations of 1.7 gigawatts. AWEA notes that 13,600 megawatts are under construction at the moment, the second highest levels ever. The majority of that is in Texas, with significant megawatts being added in Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, Illinois, Iowa and North Dakota. Total U.S. wind capacity now tops 66 gigawatts. AWEA’s Q1 report: http://bit.ly/1QLRFKH
NRC’S POST-FUKUSHIMA UPDATE: The leaders of the NRC are getting a status report today on safety regulations put in place after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, and staff is prepared to say that nearly all so-called Tier 1 activities are on or ahead of schedule. NRC leadership gets these briefings every six months. Compliance with orders approved in 2012 for mitigating strategies and new spent fuel instrumentation are expected to be completed by the end of next year, according to a presentation NRC staff are prepared to give (more than half of plants should satisfied this measure by the end of the year). A measure requiring the installation of hardened vents is projected to be satisfied by the end of 2019. The briefing starts at 9 a.m. at NRC headquarters. The staff presentation: http://1.usa.gov/1QMDGEt. The webcast: http://1.usa.gov/jqzrIj
‘CLINTON CASH’ IS BACK. INDIAN EDITION: Hillary Clinton changed her position on a 2008 nuclear agreement between the United States and India after Indian business and government interests flooded various Clinton enterprises with cash, a highly anticipated new book alleges in a new leaked chapter, reports POLITICO’s Gabriel Debenedetti. The newly obtained chapter, titled, “Indian Nukes: How to Win a Medal by Changing Hillary’s Mind,” details a series of donations and overtures from Indians who supported the nuclear deal to the Clintons, and points to one case of an Indian-American Clinton donor — who in April 2014 pleaded guilty in an illegal contribution scheme for Clinton’s 2008 run — receiving an award from the Indian government for his work in securing the agreement. Peter Schweizer’s “Clinton Cash,” which recently opened up controversy around Clinton over a Canadian uranium production company now in Russian hands, is the source of the newest chatter too. There are some inconsistencies, however: A review of then-Sen. Clinton’s statements and votes while the Indian nuclear deal was under debate shows that two key facts in Schweizer’s argument on the topic are false. http://politi.co/1JU62az
Tired of chapters being leaked individually? The book comes out on Tuesday.
QUICK HITS
— New Mexico joins race to build storage for nuclear waste. The Associated Press: http://bit.ly/1bgr5bs
— Universities under pressure to ‘divest’ from fossil fuels. NYU divestment vote Thursday. Fox News: http://fxn.ws/1JaNHpt
— Edison releases emails in San Onofre probe. U-T San Diego: http://bit.ly/1DLO46f
— Majors’ Quandary: Why Drill for Oil When They Can Buy Somebody Else’s? The Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/1zfddtB
Tags: energy, fuel, gas, oil, policy