- National Examiner: Energy policy finds little room in early debate
- Wall Street Journal: Oil up, on track for sixth weekly loss
- Associated Press: April power plant carbon emissions are lowest in 27 years, data show
- Wall Street Journal: U.S. energy companies refuse to scale back output
- New York Times: Coal Industry Wobbles as Market Forces Slug Away
- Morning Consult: Clean Power Plan is an Opportunity for States
POLITICO Morning Energy for 8/7/2015
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA, with Darren Goode, Elana Schor, Alex Guillén & Darius Dixon
THE GOP DEBATE WAS BORING (FOR ENERGY WONKS), SO LET’S START IN CANADA: While energy played a distant supporting role in the Republican debates, Canadian party leaders vying in this October’s election spent significant time during their first debate scrapping over their nation’s oil sands, climate change and the Keystone XL pipeline. Justin Trudeau, leader of the Liberals, slammed Premier Stephen Harper for letting Canadian heavy crude become a global “scapegoat” for climate change, while New Democratic Party leader Thomas Mulcair carved out his own niche by slamming both Trudeau and the incumbent Harper for supporting pipelines that would send oil sands out of Canada instead of creating construction jobs within the country. Harper “got the balance all wrong” by seeking to ease environmental regulations to help build new fuel infrastructure, Mulcair said.
On Obama’s big decision: Harper insisted that he remains rosy on Keystone’s eventual prospects for U.S. approval, though he said the $8 billion-plus pipeline may have to wait for the next president to get its long-sought border-crossing permit.
ON TO THE REPUBLICANS:
Jeb on Hillary’s KXL silence — Gimme a break: Jeb Bush mocked Hillary Clinton during Thursday night’s prime-time debate featuring the top 10 GOP presidential candidates for not taking a stance on the Keystone XL pipeline until the Obama administration makes a final decision. “You embrace the energy revolution in this country,” Bush said in ticking off ways he would improve the economy if in the White House. “This president and Hillary Clinton, who can’t even say she’s for the XL pipeline even after she’s left? Gimme a break. Of course we’re for it.”
That was one of a few fleeting references to energy and the environment during the two-hour prime-time debate moderated by Fox News. Mike Huckabee cited EPA as a federal agency whose power should be returned to the states. Scott Walker briefly touted an “all-of-the-above energy policy” as one way to improve the economy. And Bush also mentioned that the United States isn’t doing enough to embrace the energy revolution.
Mentions of climate change in main debate? 0
THE WARM-UP: Seven Republican candidates who didn’t have high enough poll numbers to qualify for the prime-time debate faced off earlier Thursday. As expected, energy issues took a backseat.
But Sen. Lindsey Graham expounded on his climate views — and simultaneously separated himself from both Hillary Clinton and the rest of the GOP pack. “You can trust me to do the following: when I get on stage with Hillary Clinton, we won’t be debating about the science, we’ll be debating about the solutions,” Graham said. The South Carolina Republican was asked why conservative Republicans should trust him based on his views on climate change, which includes his acknowledgement that human activity is a factor. Graham sought to distance himself from Republicans who are skeptical of or deny climate science, as well as from policies Clinton supports. “In her world, cap and trade would dominate. That will destroy the economy in the name of helping the environment,” Graham said. “In my world, we’ll focus on energy independence and a clean environment. When it comes to fossil fuels we’re going to find more here and use less.”
When asked what would be their first executive order as president, nearly all of the seven Republican presidential candidates at the happy hour debate said they would broadly repeal a host of Obama’s orders. Carly Fiorina specifically called for an end to Obama’s climate regulations for power plants. “I would begin by undoing a whole set of things that President Obama has done, whether it’s illegal amnesty or this latest round of EPA regulations,” she said. While a Republican president couldn’t simply toss out the EPA rules, he or she could take several steps to weaken them and possibly replace them if they are overturned by the courts. But the Supreme Court has compelled policymakers to take action on greenhouse gas emissions, so the next president would likely have to come up with an alternative.
HAPPY FRIDAY AND WELCOME TO MORNING ENERGY! I’m your temporary host, Andrew Restuccia. TGIF. I don’t know about you, but after a painfully long week, I’m ready for a stiff drink. I’ll be filling in on ME duty until Monday. Send your cocktail recipes, news, tips and commentary to arestuccia@politico.com. And follow us on Twitter @AndrewRestuccia @Morning_Energy and @POLITICOPro.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Alisha Johnson, a State Department spokeswoman on issues like Keystone XL and climate change, is leaving the department later this month to “begin an opportunity in the private sector,” she announced in an email Thursday. Johnson is well known to energy reporters. She previously served as a top spokeswoman at the EPA. Sources said Johnson will be joining Apple. She’ll be following in the footsteps of former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who has worked on environmental issues at the tech company since 2013.
TEN YEARS IS THE ETHANOL ANNIVERSARY: Saturday marks the tenth anniversary of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 being signed into law. While the bill included many provisions, including creating a formal electric reliability organization, NERC, and setting up the Energy Department’s loan guarantee program, which was greatly expanded via the 2009 stimulus. One of the EPAct’s most lasting effects, however, is the Renewable Fuel Standard, which was set up by the 2005 and expanded under a 2007 bill. As Pros know, parts of the RFS have become a major target for some in Congress as corn-ethanol volume blending mandates grew while gasoline use failed to grow at expected rates because of better efficiency and lower demand.
Cue the Al Green soundtrack: The Renewable Fuels Association on Thursday tooted its own horn with a short paper concluding that “there is no doubt the RFS has been one of our nation’s most successful energy policies.” http://bit.ly/1Ncw1vV. The American Petroleum Institute, which wants Congress to repeal the RFS, told ME in a statement that the program “has proven itself to be a relic of a bygone era of energy scarcity.”
If you like it then you should’ve put a loophole on it: Food & Water Watch took aim yesterday at the so-called “Halliburton loophole,” provisions of EPAct ’05 that prevents EPA from regulating fracking under parts of the Safe Drinking Water Act. FWW Executive Director Wenonah Hauter called the anniversary a “sad occasion,” but she said it “provides us with a ripe opportunity to reexamine our nation’s disastrous policy of doubling-down on fossil fuels over the last decade.”
** A message from Green for All: The Clean Power Plan lets us all breathe easier. It cuts carbon pollution from power plants by 32 percent and is the greatest action the U.S. has ever taken in the fight against climate change. Learn more here: http://bit.ly/1SoO34t **
PALLONE GIVES GOP ROOM TO PLUG CLIMATE BENEFITS OF ENERGY BILL: The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Frank Pallone, today opened the door for Republicans to tout potential emissions-cutting gains from narrow but bipartisan energy legislation moving through Congress. Pallone told POLITICO and Roll Call in a joint interview for C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” that he doesn’t mind Republicans — as Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski’s spokesman did this week [http://bit.ly/1MQqYEb] — touting their efficiency and renewables proposals as climate solutions. “If we come up with a bill that creates energy efficiency or leads to the use of more renewables as opposed to fossil fuels and it has a positive impact on climate change, I’ll be perfectly happy without having to actually articulate that it accomplishes that,” Pallone said. “And if someone on the Republican side wants to say it is going to accomplish that, that’s fine.”
CHALLENGERS NUDGE JUDGE OVER FAILED CARBON RULE SUIT: A group of states and coal companies opposed to EPA’s power plant carbon rules on Thursday urged the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear their rejected lawsuit over the proposed version of the rule. The challengers note that the final rule, which was released Monday, has not yet been published in the Federal Register but that it requires states to submit initial compliance plans by Sept. 6, 2016. That “means the states may be halfway through their period for preparing initial state plans” before a lawsuit could be filed and a rule potentially stayed, they write in a letter filed with the court. EPA has said it will publish the rule in the Federal Register — formally kicking off the ability to sue — “as soon as practicable.” Read the letter: http://politico.pro/1Ur5Kyb
EPA RESPONDS: EPA a few hours later urged the court to reject the rehearing request, which also included an effort to keep the same panel of GOP-appointed judges for forthcoming lawsuits over the final rule. A new randomly chosen panel of judges might be friendlier to the administration. Environmentalists last weekend blasted the attempt, and EPA weighed in today. EPA argues that because the panel lacked jurisdiction to even hear the case over the proposed rule, it cannot retain authority to hear the subsequent challenges. Read more:http://politico.pro/1ILO5bS
EPA POWER PLAN RESOURCE: Our competitors at E&E have put together an impressive database detailing how the EPA’s climate regulations for power plants will affect each state. Check it out here: http://bit.ly/1zaHaVP
DOE CASH FOR NUMBER-CRUNCHING METHANE: The IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center is getting a $4.5 million grant from the Energy Department’s ARPA-E program to craft a sophisticated and efficient methane detection system, Rep. Nita Lowey’s office announced. Working with both Princeton and Harvard, the Center will develop an intelligent multi-modal methane measurement system, dubbed AIMS, that could be a low-cost and energy efficient methane sensor, which normally require a lot of power and regular maintenance. Using a network of ground-based sensors feeding into a series of algorithms, the AIMS project is looking to provide real-time methane monitoring. The IBM facility has a footprint in the New York Democrat’s district.
THE LONE STAR ROAST CONTINUES: They did it again! Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the grid operator that oversees about 90 percent of the state’s power needs, reported yet another all-time hourly demand record yesterday, just a day after breaking the previous record, which stood for four years. In fact, it broke Wednesday’s hourly record twice in one day. Between 3 and 4 p.m. Thursday, Texans in ERCOT’s footprint consumed 68,538 MW — 79 MW above Wednesday’s peak — only to blow past that record the very next hour, sucking up 68,912 MW. ERCOT also reported that wind generation was up compared to Wednesday: Wind power contributed about 3,400 MW during yesterday’s peak, meaning that more than 25 percent of the region’s wind capacity got put to use (up from about 19 percent the day before). The grid operator’s meteorologist says temperatures in the Lone Star state will stay in the triple digits through early next week so if you got folks down there, you may want to check in on them.
MCCONNELL: TAX OVERHAUL, HIGHWAYS FOLLOW ‘SEPARATE’ TRACKS: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he doesn’t see an international tax overhaul as the way to pay for a multiyear reauthorization of highway programs. “Let me just tell you how I look at it: Two separate issues,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters during a press conference. “A separate issue is the issue of tax reform, and there’s been a lot of focus on the territorial — going to a territorial system,” McConnell added. “I might well be enthusiastic about that, but I view it as a totally separate track, unrelated to the highway issue.” The Senate’s six-year highway bill contains three years’ worth of offsets — which McConnell called “credible pay-fors” — ranging from tapping the federal petroleum reserve to slashing Federal Reserve payments to banks, to funnel dollars to the Highway Trust Fund.
FOXX TOUTS NEW PHMSA CHIEF: Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx praised Marie Therese Dominguez on Thursday — one day after the Senate confirmed her as the new head of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. “PHMSA executes a critical mission — to protect people and the environment from the risks of hazardous materials transportation. Ms. Dominguez joins our team at an important time as the U.S. energy sector is undergoing a rapid transformation,” Foxx said. “She brings to PHMSA her extensive experience as a senior leader managing complex organizations and her dedication to safety. I’m looking forward to working with her as we continue to drive innovation and raise the bar on safety at PHMSA.”
QUICK HITS:
— NPR talks to billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer: http://n.pr/1SVLbML
— “Tired of waiting for new European rules … the Netherlands, the U.K. and Norway are backing initiatives to capture carbon from industries like cement, fertilizer and waste.” POLITICO Europe: http://politi.co/1Me8sWs
— LCV Action Fund and NRDC Action Fund endorse Colo. Sen. Michael Bennet re-election. Denver Post: http://dpo.st/1It6kUo
— While everyone was watching the GOP debate, Chuck Schumer came out against the Iran deal: http://politi.co/1DyaDkr
Tags: climate, energy, gas, oil