Energy News for July 24, 2015

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  • on July 24, 2015
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POLITICO Morning Energy for 7/24/2015

By DARREN GOODE, with help from Elana Schor and Alex Guillén

MURKOWSKI’S KUMBAYA MOMENT: Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski hopes to follow the model set by the recent Senate victory for a bipartisan overhaul of “No Child Left Behind” in moving an energy plan with her panel’s ranking member Maria Cantwell. The energy bill conspicuously avoids controversial issues that many in the GOP might like to see, from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to a rollback of the crude export ban. That spirit of cooperation may evaporate once the bill reaches markup next week, but Murkowski is hopeful. “I’m not going to suggest members on either side would introduce poison pills,” she told reporters Thursday.
While her energy strategy with Cantwell is designed to avoid political thorns, Murkowski is planning to move a separate bill before the August break that would combine her plan to lift the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports with an expansion of offshore drilling and revenue sharing for Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico and parts of the Atlantic Coast. He package, dubbed the Offshore Production and Energizing National Security Act, combines Murkowski’s previously introduced language to end the crude export ban, as well as her expansion of lease sales and revenue sharing for coastal Alaska development, Louisiana Republican Bill Cassidy’s Gulf-region coastal drilling bill, and Virginia Democrat Mark Warner’s offshore exploration bill for the southern Atlantic. But it will surely meet resistance from most of her panel’s Democrats. Cantwell, for one, has said she wants to know more about the regional impacts of lifting the oil export ban.

The panel will take up the Murkowski-Cantwell energy bill starting Tuesday. Murkowski’s OPENS Act is also included in a short list of 20 items that could come up at that July 28 business meeting.

PORTMAN-SHAHEEN STRIKES BACK?: The Murkowski-Cantwell strategy includes a lot from a bipartisan energy efficiency plan from Sens. Rob Portman and Jeanne Shaheen, but the efficiency bill is also separately included on that July 28 short list. Portman is up for reelection in 2016 and may be hoping for a little extra spotlight on the bill after it died last Congress when Republicans blocked it in a dispute with then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid over offering amendments. Read the full 20-item list for the meeting: http://1.usa.gov/1g8Sway. Some of the bills could be taken up quickly by voice vote but it’s also common for items listed for a business meeting to be punted to another day.

SPR SALES PITCH: The energy bill includes language to sound the alarm about the proposed GOP sell-off of Strategic Petroleum Reserve oil to help pay for a six-year highway bill and more efficient FDA drug and medical device approvals. But it also is rather broad in defining “energy security” infrastructure that could be bolstered by the proceeds from any reserve sales. Asked to clarify her bill’s reference to SPR sales for “non-Reserve projects needed to enhance the energy security of the United States,” Murkowski left room for either a wide or narrow definition of that standard. She said sales of stockpiled oil should have “a nexus back to energy security assets” but could be conducted for reasons beyond direct maintenance of or upgrades to the 40-year-old reserve.

HAPPY FRIDAY: I’m your latest temp ME host Darren Goode, helming the ship while our colleague Eric Wolff takes care of his newborn twins, Diana and Solly. For now, send your energy news, tips, and commentary to dgoode@politico.com, and follow us on Twitter @DarrenGoode, @Morning_Energy and @POLITICOPro.

ON SECOND THOUGHT: EPA is now promising to send written testimony and other supplementary material to the House Natural Resources Committee for a hearing next week on the Endangered Species Act after the agency initially declined to be involved in at all. In a letter to panel Chairman Rob Bishop Thursday, EPA Associate Administrator for Congressional Relations Laura Vaught explained that the agency misunderstood Bishop’s intent to probe specifically how the act may get tangled up in upcoming greenhouse gas controls for power plants. But Bishop is still hopping mad that EPA is declining to send a live person to the July 29 hearing. “It should be extremely frustrating to all taxpayers that EPA will quickly draft a letter stating they will not offer testimony in person, yet in the same letter, refuse to answer the questions they’ve been asked for months,” Bishop said in a statement to ME. “This is unacceptable and will not stand.” Vaught’s letter to Bishop: http://politico.pro/1CYLAH4. Bishop’s full statement in response: http://politico.pro/1gRW69a. Elana Schor provided an in-depth take on the controversy Wednesday: http://politico.pro/1KjXxKc

CIRCUIT COURT WON’T HELP CHINESE WIND COMPANY: A Chinese wind turbine manufacturer cannot avoid a federal summons related to criminal charges, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday. U.S. prosecutors in 2013 indicted Sinovel with charges related to copyright infringement and theft of trade secrets via a summons issued to its tiny U.S. subsidiary. Sinovel allegedly planned to steal source code used to operate wind turbines from an American company called AMSC. A federal judge in Wisconsin last year ruled that Sinovel and its U.S. subsidiary are essentially one and the same, and declined to quash the summons and thus end the criminal case. A three-judge panel from the Seventh Circuit Thursday rejected Sinovel’s appeal, saying the company cannot appeal the judge’s decision not to quash. The circuit also said Sinovel did not meet the high standards required for a rarely used method of judicial relief, a “writ of mandamus.” The ruling: http://1.usa.gov/1Il1dJj

** A message from Fuels America: EPA, the choice has never been more clear on the Renewable Fuel Standard. Will you cater to oil industry lobbyists? Or will you stand with the hundreds of thousands of hardworking Americans who delivered a strong message that the RFS is working for rural America? bit.ly/1VaQpmp **

WASSMER NOMINATED FOR ENERGY UNDERSECRETARY: The White House will nominate FAA’s Victoria Wassmer for undersecretary of energy for management and performance, a position created by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz that has never been filled. Wassmer, the assistant administrator for the FAA’s finance and management office since 2011, held other senior FAA jobs under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and at the White House Office of Management and Budget in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She was tapped to be the CFO for EPA last year but her nomination didn’t reach the Senate floor after she was approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee. And the previous nominee for her possible new DOE gig, then-NASA CFO Beth Robinson, withdrew last summer after waiting nearly a year.

WHAT ARE THE ODDS?: Lisa Murkowski marveled at the long odds that an icebreaker vessel needed by Shell to drill in the Arctic waters suffered a big enough gash in her state’s heavily trafficked Dutch Harbor to present yet another hurdle to the company’s long effort. “When this happened, you had mariners who said, ‘Get out of here, there’s no way — my boat goes out of there all the time’,” she told reporters. “Big boats, little boats. How can this weird happenstance happen? To the one boat Shell absolutely, positively has to have up north? You could produce a movie and they’d say, ‘that scene was so farfetched.’”

ELECTRIC CO-OPS TALK ENERGY AT WHITE HOUSE: National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jo Ann Emerson and about two dozen other co-op leaders will meet this morning with the White House Rural Council and Rural Utilities Service to talk about “recent progress and potential collaboration on efficiency and renewable energy development,” a NRECA spokeswoman told ME in an email.

DON’T HOLD BACK NOW: Meanwhile, Murray Energy founder and CEO Robert Murray elected to take a different approach to dealing with the Obama administration. The head of the largest underground coal mining company in the U.S. is “righteously angry” over the administration and others who he says are “intent on destroying coal and our country for their bizarre personal and political ends,” according to prepared remarks to a West Virginia county Republican gathering. “What is behind this destruction of our jobs and livelihood? It is a political power grab of America’s power grid,” Murray said. Read the full story from SNL: http://bit.ly/1OBIV7I

POLL: SWING-STATE VOTERS SPLIT ON CLIMATE: Colorado voters are sharply divided along partisan lines on the question of whether humans are contributing to climate change, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll of swing-state voters. Colorado Republicans, 54-39, say humans aren’t contributing, whereas Democrats, 91-6, say they are. In the purple state of Virginia, a plurality of Republicans, 45-44, actually say human activity is indeed causing climate change. And in Iowa, a small plurality, 48-46, say humans are not the cause. Democrats in both Virginia and Iowa overwhelmingly say humans are responsible, though the margins are a bit narrower than in Colorado. At least 65 percent of Independents in all three states said humans were causing climate change. Read the full poll: http://bit.ly/1HJ9ogV

It also notes a partisan split on Pope Francis’s call for “the world to do more to address climate change,” again particularly in Colorado. Republicans there, 53-38, disagree with the pope’s message. Virginia Republicans, 42-46, and Iowa Republicans, 40-44, also disagree. A very wide margin of Democrats in all three states agree with the pope’s message, as do 61 percent of Independents in Colorado and 69 percent of Independents in both Virginia and Iowa.

GINA IN THE WINDY CITY: EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy is doing her part to spread the moral imperative to address climate change at the heart of the pope’s effort. She’ll hold a media event with Archbishop Blase Cupich at the Old St Mary’s School in Chicago to tout the archdiocese’s energy saving investments amid a broader call to address climate change to protect the most vulnerable. The event starts at 11:15 CDT.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT HEADQUARTERS: EPA Thursday proposed a voluntary program for oil and natural gas producers to commit to methane-reduction and reporting targets, the first step in the Obama administration’s plan to reduce the industry’s emissions of the greenhouse gas. The “Methane Challenge” program EPA outlined is now set to be rolled out to the industry players in a discussion that will end Sept. 1, with a final version expected in October. The challenge aims to bring the oil and gas industry closer to the administration’s stated reduction goals of between 40 and 45 percent from 2012 levels by 2025.

QUICK HITS

— Why is Elizabeth Warren on the Energy Committee? National Journal: http://bit.ly/1OpPU2K

— Outrage Over EPA Emissions Regulations Fades As States Find Fixes. Washington Post: http://wapo.st/1MM0bFZ

—Energy Future Amends Chapter 11 Exit Plan. Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/1g8CFca

—The Next Energy Supermajor? A Look at SunEdison’s Acquisition Bonanza. Greentech Media: http://bit.ly/1OpiT6J

—An Up Close Look at Tesla Motors’ Energy Storage Business Leaves More Questions Than Answers. The Motley Fool: http://bit.ly/1LzFLCO

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