- San Diego Union-Tribune: Tesla boosts range, power and price of low-end Model S
- Wall Street Journal: Shell enters $70B merger deal with BG Group
- Oil & Gas Journal: Report: U.S. offshore oil, gas operations safer than before
POLITICO Morning Energy for 4/9/2015
By DARIUS DIXON, with help from Erica Martinson, Alex Guillén and Elana Schor
BLOOMBERG’S WAR ON COAL: Before Michael Bloomberg would commit tens of millions of dollars to the Sierra Club’s campaign to shut down coal plants all over the United States, he wanted something: more data specifying where his money would go. The famously detail-oriented politician who had built a media empire on second-by-second financial minutiae was considering a major donation to what would become a successful state-by-state crusade against the nation’s cheapest and dirtiest source of electricity. But first, Bloomberg and his lieutenants “put us through the ringer,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in an interview yesterday, recalling the conversations from late 2010. The exercise paid off, culminating in Wednesday’s pledge that will make Bloomberg and his allies a $110 million benefactor to the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. The Sierra Club’s data-driven effort now spans 45 states, and it has claimed credit for ensuring the demise of 188 coal plants whose owners have announced plans to shutter or repurpose them since 2010. Andrew Restuccia gets into the details: http://politi.co/1Fki0vN
So Bloombergian: The ex-mayor’s aides get monthly reports detailing, down to the megawatt, which coal plants are being targeted for retirement.
Later the same day, Bloomberg received an honorary knighthood at the British Embassy (Only the Queen’s subjects get the “Sir” added so he’s still “former NYC mayor” or “billionaire” but he can add “KBE.”)
MARK YOUR CALENDARS, FERC WORLD: The Supreme Court will discuss whether to take up FERC’s appeal over its demand response rule, Order No. 745, at the justices’ weekly conference on April 24. Orders from those conferences come out the following Monday, so we’ll most likely know whether the Supreme Court will take the case on April 27. It’s late enough in the court’s current term that, should they agree to hear the case, oral arguments would happen this fall. A three-judge D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel vacated FERC’s demand response order last year on a split decision saying that FERC had improperly encroached on activity regulated by the states.
HAPPY THURSDAY. I’m your morning host, Darius Dixon, and to demonstrate my lag in pop cultural affairs, I just discovered that Capt. Kathryn Janeway has been on “Orange is the New Black” for two seasons. Mrs. ME — yes, I married fellow Star Trek nerd — said: “I think we have a show we need to watch.” Send your energy tips to ddixon@politico.com, and follow us on Twitter @dariusss, @Morning_Energy and @POLITICOPro.
** A message from Fuels America: After years of innovation and investment, the cellulosic biofuels industry is now deploying the lowest carbon, most innovative fuel in the world at commercial scale. A new Third Way report shows “reforming” or repealing the Renewable Fuel Standard could doom this potentially transformative sector. Find out how: http://bit.ly/1CfYvNn **
PEOPLE ARE ON THE MOVE:
— STIR IT UP, MR. PRESIDENT: President Barack Obama, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Rep. Yvette Clarke and others landed in Jamaica last night ahead of varied agenda set for today in Kingston, according to White House pool reports. Besides a brief book signing, Obama has a bilateral meeting with Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller and meetings at the University of the West Indies.
Energy security is on the agenda, according to the Associated Press: “China has steadily expanded its economic alliances in the Caribbean, and the region is seeking to reduce its dependence on subsidized oil from an economically struggling Venezuela. China is providing much of the financing for new roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects… ‘We, in looking at the region, saw that a number of the (Caribbean) countries had significant energy needs,’ said Benjamin Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser.” Later this afternoon the trip continues on to Panama City. http://bit.ly/1Nc1pys
The AP reports that Obama is the first sitting president to visit the island since Ronald Reagan.
— THE HESS CONNECTIONS: House Majority Whip Steve Scalise is leading a congressional delegation on a visit to Hess Corp.’s Tubular Bells oil and gas production facility about 135 miles southeast of New Orleans, ME is told. The facility, which began production late last year, sits in waters about 4,300 feet deep in the Gulf of Mexico. Hess operates Tubular Bells and owns a majority stake, while Chevron holds the rest. “Since August 2008, I have taken Members of Congress to the Gulf of Mexico every year to experience first-hand how American energy is safely produced,” Scalise said in a statement.
Who else is going? Reps. Larry Bucshon, Buddy Carter, Barbara Comstock, Paul Cook, Gene Green, Richard Hudson, Tim Walberg, Mimi Walters, and Ryan Zinke (9 Republicans total, and 1 Democrat).
— YUCCA-PALOOZA 2015: Rep. John Shimkus and other House members are visiting one of the most expensive plots of land in America today: Yucca Mountain. Nevada Reps. Cresent Hardy and Mark Amodei are part of the visit. Hardy, a freshman, bucked conventional wisdom last month when he wrote that he was open to using the nuclear waste site if it meant Nevada would get some serious federal cash. Reps. Bob Latta, Dan Newhouse, and Jerry McNerney are also attending.
In the trip’s honor, the Nuclear Energy Institute collected a “Top 10” list of facts about the site. While glossing over why the site became so controversial for Nevadans, and leaving out the fact that the NRC’s Safety Evaluation Report isn’t the final verdict on the site, it otherwise has quite a few interesting documents and mentions the “Godzilla” shoutout. http://bit.ly/1y6FfXt
ME can’t leave well enough alone: One point raised on NEI’s list is the oft-used description of Yucca Mountain as a “dump.” No one is surprised when Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and great deal of other Nevadans call it that. NEI’s quip, however, is with reporters using the term, and here, I’m somewhat conflicted. I can’t dispute that it fits an Oxford English Dictionary definition: “A site for depositing garbage.” But we all know the imagery that comes to mind is a steaming pile of carelessly shoveled junk, which fits another OED definition: “Put (something) down firmly or heavily and carelessly.” Perhaps I’m biased because I’m a former scientist who knew a few people who did research related to the project. I avoid using “dump” because the word seems to imply a judgment but maybe this is best sorted out by those who write the AP Style Guide.
THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW … ON TWITTER: Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is taking questions via Twitter as part of a White House initiative to address public health threats exacerbated by climate change. Collection of tweets using the hashtag #AskTheSurgeonGeneral started late yesterday and will continue through 2:30 p.m. today. After that, Murthy’s video responses will be posted to the @Surgeon_General Twitter account. Non-climate-related public health questions are also welcome. More info: http://1.usa.gov/1Fo9jew
GRADUATION DAY: EPA chief Gina McCarthy will give the commencement keynote at her alma mater, the University of Massachusetts- Boston, on May 29. http://bit.ly/1Criid7
COME ALL YE EPA HATERS: The state of Wisconsin can join an ongoing case over EPA’s proposed greenhouse gas rule for existing power plants, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered. Last month new Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel asked to join 13 other states suing EPA, because he wasn’t in office at the time of the Nov. 7 deadline. Oral arguments in the case are April 16.
AWEA BLOWS BACK AT SPP STUDY OF EPA RULE: Not long after the Southwest Power Pool released its second analysis of the EPA’s greenhouse gas rule for existing power plants, the American Wind Energy Association pushed back saying that the grid operator had “arbitrarily limited the region’s options” for meeting compliance. To meet the rule’s 2030 deadline, SPP’s study says, an average of $2.9 billion would need to be spent in the region every year in generation capital investment and energy production costs. The analysis also concludes that up to 13,900 megawatts of extra coal-fired generation could be at risk of retirement. AWEA pointed to portions of SPP’s study that suggest that the extra coal plant retirements may actually be closer to 2,200 megawatts. “If the region had been allowed to fully utilize its abundant and low-cost resources of wind, natural gas, and energy efficiency, the cost of achieving the Clean Power Plan would have been far lower,” AWEA’s Michael Goggin wrote. A future SPP report will include a state-by-state analysis, which would include all or part of eight states right in the center of the contiguous U.S. SPP’s report: http://bit.ly/1DmAzgE. AWEA critique: http://bit.ly/1yXt6iK
RADON RISING IN PA SHALE COUNTRY — STUDY: Indoor radon levels are notably higher in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region than in areas where less fracking for natural gas is taking place, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found in a study coming out today in Environmental Health Perspectives. The study parsed more than 860,000 state measurements of indoor radon, exposure to which can lead to lung cancer. What the researchers couldn’t determine with certainty is whether the elevated radon they found came from household use of the fracked gas, air emissions near fracking sites, or a change unrelated to drilling like building construction that could seal more radon indoors. “One plausible explanation for elevated radon levels in people’s homes is the development of thousands of unconventional natural gas wells in Pennsylvania over the past 10 years,” Brian Schwartz, the study leader and a professor at the Bloomberg School’s environmental health sciences department, said in a statement. The study: http://1.usa.gov/1Oaz3ls
EVEN EPA’S BIGGEST CRITICS ANSWER TO THE HOME TURF: Greenwire’s Robin Bravender: “Even U.S. EPA’s fiercest foes on Capitol Hill sometimes come calling for favors. Take Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has made no secret about his disdain for the Obama EPA. The Kentucky Republican has said he would use his post to do ‘whatever I can to get the EPA reined in.’ But early last year, McConnell asked the agency for some assistance… [In fact in] early 2014, even with election-year politics in full swing, a spate of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle peppered EPA with requests, according to correspondence recently released to Greenwire under a Freedom of Information Act request.” http://bit.ly/1Cre0Tg
YOU CAN TAKE THAT EFFICIENCY, AND SAVE IT: The California Public Utilities Commission released a report last night detailing the state’s efficiency program, and finding that between 2010 and 2012 California cut power consumption by about 7,745 gigawatt-hours. That efficiency savings figure, CPUC says, is enough to supply electricity to almost 800,000 homes for a year and it may have helped reduce summer peak demand by more than a gigawatt. The CPUC report: http://bit.ly/1y6jNCb
QUICK HITS
— Oil Buyer’s Guide: What’s next after the Shell BG Deal. Bloomberg: http://bit.ly/1Pm5uP6
— Reddit user says a ‘mix up’ got his random friend into a meeting with Obama on solar visit. Business Insider: http://read.bi/1y6JUZz
— Shell’s Move Could Prompt Wave of Energy Sector Mergers. The Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/1y6ZAfo
— Denver energy company plans unique power plant for New Mexico. Denver Business Journal: http://bit.ly/1a8cOwW
— Federal Judge Halts Coal Mine Expansion in Northern New Mexico. Center for Biological Diversity: http://bit.ly/1aM5uIJ
Tags: fuel, gas, oil, transportation