- Christian Science Monitor: Obama draws criticism over climate change agenda
POLITICO Morning Energy for 6/24/2015
By DARIUS DIXON, with help from Eric Wolff, Elana Schor and Nick Juliano
COURT PUTS INTERIOR’S FRACKING RULE IN LIMBO: The Obama administration’s fracking regulations, which had been set to take effect today, are on hold until August, thanks to a Wyoming federal judge who granted a stay late Tuesday as he continues to hear a challenge from industry groups and four states. Judge Scott Skavdahl ruled that the challenge to the regulations from the Bureau of Land Management that govern well construction, chemical disclosure, and other aspects of fracking on federal lands, “have merit and that BLM should not implement the rule in a hurried manner when plaintiffs have a strong chance of prevailing,” a spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association for America, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement. The industry group Western Energy Alliance and the states of Utah, North Dakota, Colorado and Wyoming are also suing Interior. Skavdahl is now set to make a ruling on the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction shortly after the Interior Department hands in the administrative record on the regulations, expected July 22.
Cue Interior: “The BLM is consulting with the Office of the Solicitor and the Department of Justice about the decision of the U.S. District Court in Wyoming to temporarily stay implementation of the hydraulic fracturing rule,” Jessica Kershaw said by email. “While the matter is being resolved, the BLM will follow the Court’s order and will continue to process applications for permit to drill and inspect well sites under its pre-existing regulations.”
MCCARTHY, REID, SCHUMER GET STANDING O AT LCV: EPA chief Gina McCarthy, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, and his messaging chief-turned-heir brought down a packed house Tuesday night at the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund’s annual dinner. Sen. Chuck Schumer kicked things off for the crowd by introducing Reid, who received a lifetime achievement award from the group, and vowing that as long as either Democrat is in the leadership, “we will never let them repeal those EPA standards.” Schumer was referring to Republicans, of course, whom Reid took on with characteristic vigor in his speech. “The reason we’re not doing more,” Reid told LCV’s guests about climate change, “is because of the Republican party and all the people in Congress who are stopping us … We’ve got to get partisan.”
Remember September. McCarthy read aloud from Obama’s threat to veto GOP Rep. Ed Whitfield’s Ratepayer Protection Act, set to pass today, which rolls back her agency’s marquee climate rules. She vowed that EPA would see its multiple regulatory efforts safely across the finish line. “We have many ways of patting our heads and rubbing our tummies, folks,” she quipped, before making what some tea-leaf-readers might hear as a hint about the expected summertime release of the final power plant plan. “No matter what we do in September, the work will continue,” McCarthy said. Or was she referring to August by saying that “no matter what we do, in September the work will continue”? That’s some real “comma drama.”
THE VOGTLE BRONZE MEDAL: Speaking of finish lines, the Energy Department is announcing today that it has finalized the third — and final — chunk of its $8.3 billion loan guarantee commitment to Southern Co.’s Vogtle nuclear plant expansion. This last $1.8 billon leg of the loan guarantee is being made to three subsidiaries of the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia — a decision that comes more than 16 months after DOE signed off on the roughly $3.5 billion and $3.1 billion Southern Co. and Oglethorpe Power portions of the guarantee. DOE’s conditional commitments to Vogtle date back to 2010 and the construction of the two AP1000 reactors at the site have been underway for years.
HELLO HUMPDAY! I’m Darius Dixon and I’m still marveling at some of Tokyo’s seemingly incongruous policies such as how it handles smoking. I don’t smoke and very much frown on the practice. Sue ME. What I don’t get about Tokyo is that they have public “smoking areas” (seen here: http://politico.pro/1BLTpQ4) but still permit smoking in restaurants, and arcades (yes, they still have those!). In principle, I get the public/private divide, I just don’t want to. 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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YOU DOWN WITH MLP? YEAH YOU KNOW ME: Sen. Chris Coons gets on an Amtrak train to work each day thinking about politics in a way many Americans no longer consider: He’s optimistic. And in that vein, today he’s introducing the latest version of the Master Limited Partnerships Parity Act, a bipartisan bill that could open up lower-cost capital to renewable energy projects by allowing them to setup business structures already available to fossil industries. “This is an idea where no one is opposed,” he told ME in an exclusive interview. “But like many good ideas in Congress, you have to keep pushing until you find the moment of opportunity.” This is the third go at the MLP bill, which has Republican and Democratic co-sponsors in both chambers, for Coons and his compatriots. The bill has also gotten longer in each Congress: This year’s bill is more than three times longer than the original version introduced in 2012. “We’ve gradually covered very possible area of renewable activity,” Coons said. True enough, the bill is open to standard go-to’s like solar but includes renewable chemicals.
What’s different this time around? The “major barrier to success” in the last Congress, Coons said, was the high-level decision to hold all tax-related bills for a comprehensive reform effort that never materialized. In the next few weeks, there will be a decision about whether to move ahead with comprehensive tax reform, he said. If that concept falls through, small-bore tax reform changes may be done as part of a tax extenders package or move as a freestanding bill. “If any of those scenarios happen, this is a bill that is an idea whose time has come.” And Coons has personally taken the case to Sens. Orrin Hatch and Ron Wyden in recent weeks and broached the topic with Leaders Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid. He’s also got a new op-ed: http://bit.ly/1N83o2D.
Coons is holding a conference call at 10:15 a.m. today. For more info, contact Sean_Coit@coons.senate.gov. The bill: http://1.usa.gov/1BLBLvE
** A Message from Nuclear Matters: Providing more than 60% of America’s carbon-free electricity, existing, state-of-the-art nuclear energy plants play a vital role in achieving our clean-energy and carbon-reduction goals. The industry also supports more than 100,000 jobs nationally and provides critical tax revenue locally for roads, schools and other public priorities. Learn more at NuclearMatters.com. **
WHITFIELD, YOU’RE UP: The House is slated to begin debating Rep. Ed Whitfield’s Ratepayer Protection Act today, a measure, as you read above, that the EPA chief is not a fan of. Whitfield’s bill would essentially put EPA’s final carbon rule for existing power plants on hold until the courts have finished legal reviews of the regulation. It would also exempt any state from the rule whose governor determines the rule would hurt ratepayers or threaten reliability. The bill received a rule Tuesday night that will allow five amendments to be debated on the floor. To turn the tables a bit, one of the three Democratic amendments would force governors seeking to opt out of the Clean Power Plan to first acknowledge that power plants are sources of “carbon pollution that contribute to human-induced climate change.” It would also force them to state that cutting carbon emissions promotes all sorts of good things. The amendments: http://1.usa.gov/1KbBwgh.
The first House votes of the day are expected between 1:15 p.m. and 2:15 p.m.
ROAD TO GOP MAJORITY WAS PAVED WITH WAXMAN-MARKEY: Rep. Michael Burgess really got riled up during Tuesday night’s Rules Committee meeting. While he felt that Obamacare was the main driver for the Republican takeover of the House in 2010, the Texas Republican argued that it was the passage of Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation in the House that galvanized the public. “I will sit here and tell you that it was the healthcare law that propelled us back into the majority but I’ll tell you what set the stage was the passage of Waxman-Markey,” he said. “The country recoiled in horror at what the House had done.” You can almost picture the camera zooming in on 310 million horrified faces.
The Rules Committee approved a modified-open rule for the $30 billion fiscal 2016 Interior-EPA spending bill, which allows lawmakers to offer any number of amendments to the bill. But what action on the spending bill startith on Thursday will not endith before the impending weeklong July Fourth recess. Friday votes were cancelled to give lawmakers time to travel and attend funeral services for the nine Emanuel AME Church members who were killed last week in Charleston, S.C.
Interior-EPA bill, you tease: It’s worth noting that this has been one of the toughest bills to bring to the floor for a mix of factors: EPA’s climate regs are controversial but everyone tends to like items such as the drinking water revolving fund, which can help local water and sewer authorities back home pay for upgrades. Another important factoid: The House hasn’t had a floor vote on a standalone Interior-EPA appropriation bill since June 26, 2009, before the Republicans retook the chamber.
YOU GET A TSCA, AND YOU GET A TSCA: The House approved a bipartisan overhaul of chemical safety law today on a 398-1 vote, bringing Congress closer to a bicameral deal that would reshape decades-old rules for EPA to evaluate new chemicals. The rewrite of the Toxic Substances Control Act drew one no vote: Tom McClintock.
Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Barbara Boxer said the House bill isn’t perfect but “it is the appropriate bill to take up in the United States Senate where we can work on just a few amendments to make it better.”
SCHUMER’S CLINTON CARBON TAX: The leader-in-waiting of the Senate Democrats, Chuck Schumer, talked about carbon emissions and threw in the T-word and laid out a path for a carbon tax if Hillary Clinton and her party prevail in next year’s elections, Pro’s Elana Schor reports: The mere suggestion of a new fee on the emissions blamed for climate change, however, could become a political headache for Clinton and other Democrats, and it’s routinely dismissed by Republicans. The Obama administration disavowed the idea after the 2012 election. “If Hillary wins and we take back the Senate, I believe many of our Republican friends will say we’ve been starving the government for revenues,” Schumer told an environmental event on Capitol Hill, “but many of them will not be for raising rates.” Schor has more for Pros: http://politico.pro/1IxQrve
REPORT RAISES DOUBTS ABOUT SOME EFFICIENCY WORK: The EPA is counting on energy efficiency to help offset higher electric bills from its carbon dioxide rule for power plants, Pro’s Eric Wolff reports. But a University of Chicago study released Tuesday may blow a hole in the agency’s reasoning. The researchers studied the federal Weatherization Assistance Program, which helps low-income households improve the energy economy of their homes, and found that one dollar spent on the program produced only 50 cents in benefits, a far worse performance than efficiency models predicted. Eric has more: http://politico.pro/1e2NNWc
A NEW FELLOWSHIP HAS BEEN FORGED: There’s no Ring of Power to destroy or a flaming Balrog to do battle with, but the Pro Energy team is once again fully staffed. Nick Juliano officially started as deputy energy editor on Tuesday. Help us welcome him at njuliano@politico.com.
ACTION JACKSON: Former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is taking on a bigger government affairs role at Apple as the iPhone giant reorganizes its Washington office, reports Pro Tech’s Tony Romm. http://politico.pro/1eGLLMF
SOLAR ENERGY IS MORE BETTER: Utilities are laying into state legislatures and public utility commissions to get them to ease off the solar subsidies and net metering programs that threaten the traditional utility business model. Now a new study from the Environment America Research & Policy Center and the Frontier Group today says the economic value of each electron from a rooftop solar array exceeds the retail value of electrons from utility-scale generators once benefits from avoided infrastructure and reduced emissions kick in. The authors reviewed 11 studies on the benefits of rooftop solar, including three commissioned by utilities and two from PUCs. In an oh-so-shocking turn of events, the three studies funded by utilities found lower values for solar than studies from other organizations. The study from the Maine PUC found the greatest value to rooftop solar largely due to its inclusion of other environmental benefits and an assessment that solar lowered its financial risk. The report: http://bit.ly/1Gy1QtP
BUT WHAT DO BEARS DO IN THE WOODS? EPA Chief Gina McCarthy said she’s got a snappy new answer for when she’s asked if climate change is real: Is the Pope Catholic? Or, since she said it on Twitter, “Is @Pontifex Catholic?” For more McCarthy bon mots, which will surely include insights on the direction in which one-legged ducks swim and whether chickens have lips, you can catch her on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday at 10 p.m. http://bit.ly/1N8EIa4
QUICK HITS
— DOE Study Finds Elevated Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Canadian Crude. The Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/1GGBh8R
— Senate salvages Obama trade agenda. POLITICO: http://politi.co/1Idf58I; Dems weigh last-ditch move to sink trade bill: http://politi.co/1GGQEyh
— Subsidy cut to onshore wind farms sparks row in UK. The Argus: http://bit.ly/1Ji09rv
— Itochu ends $1bn US shale foray with $1 stake sale. Financial Times: http://on.ft.com/1dfj7R6
Tags: energy, fuel, gas, oil