- The Wall Street Journal: The Legal and Economic Case for Obama’s Clean Power Plan
POLITICO Morning Energy for 4/1/2015
By DARIUS DIXON, with help from Erica Martinson and Alex Guillén
HOUSE OVERSIGHT OPENS PROBE ON PONEMAN’S NEW GIG: The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is home to the latest set of lawmakers feeling uneasy about Dan Poneman’s move to lead Centrus Energy Corp. so quickly after he left his post as the Energy Department’s No. 2. In letters to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Centrus general counsel Peter Saba released last night, Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz and Rep. Cynthia Lummis, who chairs the committee’s interior subpanel, wrote: “Given Mr. Poneman’s involvement in the numerous dealings between DOE and USEC [Centrus’ former incarnation] since 2009, we are concerned that he may have violated post-employment laws for federal personnel, including restrictions that require senior government officials to report when they are seeking private employment.” The panel also said that documents “show that Mr. Poneman also advocated for a loan guarantee for USEC in 2011.” Like Sen. John Barrasso, who chided Poneman last month about the new job, Lummis hails from Wyoming, a state that has a large uranium mining industry that has been at odds with USEC, especially in its dealings with DOE. Lawmakers want several documents by April 10. Letter to Moniz: http://1.usa.gov/1Ffu66u. Letter to Saba: http://1.usa.gov/1CK2OFJ
Centrus spokesman Jeremy Derryberry said the company will respond to the request. And added: “At no time during his employment with the Department of Energy did anyone affiliated with Centrus contact Mr. Poneman to discuss future employment opportunities … At all times, Mr. Poneman and the company have fully complied with all applicable post-employment restrictions and government ethics requirements and will continue to do so in the future.”
FEINSTEIN DOESN’T LIKE THIS SITUATION EITHER: Last week, Sen. Dianne Feinstein questioned Moniz about Poneman, too. “He was heavily involved in decision to keep USEC afloat, particularly when that was just what was being done,” the California Democrat said at an appropriations subpanel hearing. “This seems to ignore his potential influence with career bureaucrats. I’m really less concerned about the optics for Mr. Poneman than I am the department’s,” she said. “How can anyone fully trust a DOE or contractor decision that benefits Centrus?”
Moniz responded by saying that DOE gave Poneman, who officially became Centrus CEO last week, a “refresher course” on restricted activities. Poneman has vowed to avoid dealing directly with DOE for two years. “We will be having to make some difficult decisions going forward,” Moniz admitted, regarding further spending on the company. He said that DOE has taken over some of Centrus’s activities at Oak Ridge national lab, but that it must hire some the company’s former employees to run the centrifuges.
Your morning host dove into all this two weeks ago: http://politi.co/1N7Y8Ll
HAPPY HUMP DAY. I’m your morning host, Darius Dixon, and I’m liking the book recommendations about D.C. history that you’ve sent ME so far. I’ve had family in NYC longer than its five boroughs have been united — so NYC will always be my city. But D.C. will be mini-ME’s city and I want to do my homework. I’m still taking suggestions and I’ll share the recommendations tomorrow. Send your energy tips to ddixon@politico.com, and follow us on Twitter @dariusss, @Morning_Energy and @POLITICOPro.
INTERIOR OKS ARCTIC LEASE: The Interior Department checked off a key item for Shell yesterday as the oil company seeks to resume offshore Arctic drilling, signing off on a 2008 lease sale that had been held up in court. The step was widely expected following last month’s release of a final environmental review of the contested lease sale. It does not constitute final approval for Shell to begin drilling, but Interior’s published “record of decision” means that the company could win federal approval to resume drilling in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea as soon as this summer. The lease sale affirmation paves the way for Interior to begin a broader review of Shell’s plans to resume Arctic drilling, in addition to future approval requests for specific wells.
Shell spokesman Curtis Smith said by email that the company’s updated Chukchi drilling plan “remains contingent on achieving the necessary permits, legal certainty and our own determination that we are prepared to explore safely and responsibly.”
The official Record of Decision: http://1.usa.gov/1F02PTb
WASHINGTON’S GOVERNOR IS NOT A FAN: “[T]he decision to open new areas in the Arctic for oil and gas production stand in conflict with the important federal and states efforts to shift to cleaner forms of energy and reduce the carbon pollution that is driving climate change,” Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee said in a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. “I cannot in good faith support this new oil and gas development given the slow and insufficient progress that countries have made to date in limiting carbon pollution.” http://politico.pro/1F1AOdS
…And green let’em have it too:
— Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Marissa Knodel: “It is unconscionable that the federal government is willing to risk the health and safety of the people and wildlife that live near and within the Chukchi Sea for Shell’s reckless pursuit of oil.”
— Earthjustice staff attorney Erik Grafe: “Interior still has time to make a better decision when evaluating Shell’s drilling plan, and we sincerely hope it says no to Shell’s louder, bigger, and dirtier tactics, loaded with potential environmental harm.”
— Greenpeace USA executive director Annie Leonard: “No one in her right mind would trust Shell to deliver a pizza safely across town, so trusting the company to drill in the Arctic is nothing short of negligence.”
One a related note: Several enviros have been trying to block the Port of Seattle from leasing space (http://bit.ly/1bOwWpq) to Shell for the company’s Arctic drilling fleet. That petition, which was filed early last month: http://bit.ly/17Mwh5q
STEYER GROUP GOES FULL ONION: Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate group is out with a new video today showing how climate change is a “hoax.” “It looks like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and the other science deniers are right!” the group says in a snarky statement. The three-minute video, which has a fake scientist explain that the idea of global warming was a prank crafted by angry nerds annoyed by years of ridicule, reveals “how scientists melted glaciers” and “manipulated 13,900 peer-reviewed papers over the past forty years.” The video: http://bit.ly/1CuHVgl They’re just trying to warm up my sarcasm button.
NEW DAY, NEW LAWSUIT AGAINST EPA: The Competitive Enterprise Institute is filing a new lawsuit against the EPA in D.C. District Court today in an effort to compel the agency to discuss the scope of the documents it expects to turn over — and what it might withhold — as a result of two information requests the group filed. One of the Freedom of Information Act requests from CEI is looking for communications between EPA’s congressional affairs staff and the offices of Sen. Barbara Boxer, Ed Markey or Sheldon Whitehouse that include certain keywords around letters the lawmakers’ sent to fossil fuel groups asking about climate research they’ve funded. The second FOIA revolves around Rep. Raul Grijalva’s request that universities turn over financial information about faculty members who have been skeptical of climate science. “EPA has failed to provide plaintiff the requisite indication the Agency is processing or intends to process plaintiff’s requests,” the new petition says, noting that a 20-day deadline has passed for the agency to “inform the requester of the scope of the documents that the agency will produce, as well as the scope of the documents that the agency plans to withhold under any FOIA exemptions.” http://politico.pro/1Gfxhg4
MOVIN’ ON UP: Rob Underwood has been selected to be the new president of the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, effective May 16. Underwood has been the group’s government affairs director since 2007, when the Georgia native left the staff of former Sen. Saxby Chambliss. PMAA’s current president, Dan Gilligan, retires later this year.
CONSERVATIVE GROUPS TAKE FORMATION AROUND MCCONNELL: More than two dozen conservative groups today are cheering on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s campaign urging states to “just say no” to the EPA greenhouse gas regulations for power plants. “The right of states to keep their fingerprints off what they regard as a misguided or unlawful rule is basic to the very concept of cooperative federalism,” the groups, which include Americans for Prosperity and CEI, state in a new letter: http://bit.ly/1xUXbVt
THE LAB REPORT DEADLINE THAT WASN’T MEANT TO BE: According to last year’s omnibus spending bill, today was supposed to be the original deadline for Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to tell lawmakers which recommendations of a commission studying the agency’s national labs got his support — and his plan of action. But that plan was eventually split into two phases, and the congressionally created panel completed a 145-page interim report (http://1.usa.gov/1I2axCn) last month as part of the first phase of its work. That report established “preliminary” observations and recommendations where “there is the possibility they could be modified later, once the full study is completed.” Meanwhile, the panel intends to make final recommendations once its second phase is also complete but given the breadth and complexity of the subject, the timeline for final recommendations is somewhat open ended. They offered initial findings, the report states, because of “the urgency and interest in the study from Congress and the Administration.”
In its second phase, the commission is expected to “determine whether there are opportunities to more effectively and efficiently use the capabilities of the national laboratories, including consolidation and realignment, reducing overhead costs, reevaluating governance models using industrial and academic bench marks for comparison, and assessing the impact of DOE’s oversight and management approach.” Its next public meeting is scheduled for April 22, three weeks from today. They’ve scheduled meetings into July: http://1.usa.gov/1EAeqxh
QUICK HITS
— North Dakota’s new oil train safety checks seen missing risks. Reuters: http://reut.rs/1CuVHQ1
— Renewable energy is growing very, very fast, just not fast enough. The Washington Post: http://wapo.st/1HihUSE
— San Onofre Closure Costs May Get Further Review. NBC San Diego: http://bit.ly/1bPbhgK
— How Red States Learned to Love the Gas Tax. The Atlantic: http://theatln.tc/1C4RcYM
— Federal Rail Chief Says Ticketing Important to Rail Safety. The Associated Press: http://apne.ws/1ahiBBt
— Climate: Russia sketches emissions cut of up to 30 percent. AFP: http://bit.ly/1F0UFd5
— CPUC Commissioner taken off San Onofre case. U-T San Diego: http://bit.ly/1xVJJk5
— New York Court of Appeals rejects drilling lease case. Capital New York: http://bit.ly/1GK5RzA
— Murray Energy temporarily idles Monongalia County, W.Va., mine. WOWKTV: http://bit.ly/1BKtAsR
Tags: climate, energy, fuel, gas, oil