Daily on Energy: How Manchin changed his permitting bill to make it more viable

Manchin announced the amended, renamed permitting bill yesterday and encouraged senators to support it as an amendment to the defense bill from which his earlier bill was excluded.

Here are just a few of the notable changes:

Public involvement: The new bill maintains many of the earlier version’s provisions that would put a fence around litigation challenging projects and permitting decisions, including a 150-day statute of limitations for court challenges. But it would also open consent decrees and settlement agreements to additional transparency and weigh-in from the public.

Harder deadlines: Manchin’s new bill replaces “average” timelines for the completion of National Environmental Policy Act reviews with harder deadlines.

The first bill set a target for completion of environmental impact statements at an average of two years, while an average of one year was set for projects for which an environmental assessment is required.

The new bill removes the “average” language.

Transmission: Language to speed up the siting and permitting of electric transmission was about the only thing some Democratic opponents liked about Manchin’s initial bill.

It was also singled out for opposition by some Republicans, who were wary of its approach of giving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission expanded authority over interstate transmission projects, fearing it would trample states’ discretion.

The new bill differs in that it would provide for a one-year timeline for states to act, or not, on a transmission project’s construction permit before FERC intervenes – so long as the project is deemed to be in the national interest.

Is it enough? We’d put our money on “no.” There’s still plenty for Democrats to oppose. Directions to agencies to finalize approvals for the Mountain Valley Pipeline remain, and the litigation constraints have been especially objectionable.

“Your organizations, tribes and small environmental groups that come together around issues — they don’t have a team of lawyers to be able to do this overnight,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, who opposes Manchin’s bill, said earlier this week.

“This is like squeezing out all the small, public advocates from across the nation. They’ll just be told, ‘Sorry, you’re too late,’” he said.

The differences in the two bills are substantial, one GOP Senate source told Jeremy, but the mechanics around the NDAA are the larger issue.

“Very little reason for the Senate/Schumer to take a House-passed NDAA and amend it with something that would kill the whole thing if it got back to the House,” the person said. “And that’s assuming the Senate approves it, which is generous.”

Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Jeremy Beaman (@jeremywbeaman) and Breanne Deppisch (@breanne_dep). Email [email protected] or [email protected] for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.

BIDEN OFFICIAL WARNS OF RISKS OF MINERAL DEPENDENCE: The U.S. and its allies must avoid trading historical dependencies on foreign sources of fossil fuels for one on Chinese-produced and processed critical minerals, a senior State Department official said.

“We do not want to replace an era in which Russia was able to manipulate its fossil fuel assets to intimidate and coerce our allies and partners with one in which China is able to manipulate its critical minerals supply chain monopolies,” Geoffrey Pyatt, the assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources, told the Washington Examiner’s Katherine Doyle.

Taking back some of that market share from China was a central focus of Demcrats’s Inflation Reduction Act, which with its domestic content provisions was designed to fuel more demand for electric vehicles and other green technologies without strengthening China’s position.

Support for breaking those links in the supply chain is not equally distributed among allied governments and segments of the clean energy sector, though, as demonstrated in both the trade skirmish between the U.S. and EU and Asian trade partners and the Commerce Department’s solar probe into Chinese circumvention allegations.

New Sullivan-Romney mineral bill: Republican Sens. Mitt Romney and Dan Sullivan introduced legislation yesterday to improve the Defense Department’s mineral independence from China.

The Critical Mineral Independence Act of 2022 would require the director of the Defense Logistics Agency to develop and implement a strategy to expedite critical mineral mining and processing. It would also establish that it is U.S. policy that DOD achieve “critical mineral supply chain independence” by 2027.

DOE ANNOUNCES CONSORTIUM TO INFORM HALEU SUPPLY EFFORT: The Energy Department announced a new business consortium designed to help DOE with its mandate to establish a domestic supply of high assay, low-enriched uranium, the fuel needed to power emerging advanced nuclear reactor designs.

DOE announced the consortium yesterday, saying the lack of domestic HALEU “increases the risk of private investment” in advanced nuclear technologies.

Russia is currently the only source of commercially available HALEU, and some of the United States’ leading advanced reactor developers were banking on using Russian HALEU to fuel at least their first reactors.

The war in Ukraine has upended that supply relationship, even though the U.S. has yet to enact any ban on Russian uranium imports, due to the general blacklisting of Russia.

The Inflation Reduction Act authorized new HALEU funding, adding to HALEU mandates Congress passed in the Energy Act of 2020.

VANGUARD PULLS OUT OF GLOBAL NET-ZERO INITIATIVE: Vanguard is no longer a member of the Net Zero Asset Managers alliance, which had members commit to support investing “aligned with net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner.”

The Pennsylvania-based investment giant said it was pulling out of the initiative “so that we can provide the clarity our investors desire about the role of index funds and about how we think about material risks, including climate-related risks.”

It also said it sought “to make clear that Vanguard speaks independently on matters of importance to our investors.”

It’s a major development in the world of ESG and voluntary green finance initiatives, toward which major financial institutions have shown increasing skepticism in recent months over concerns that it could leave them exposed to litigation for not hewing to the commitments.

Big banks and fund managers have also been under immense and competing outside pressures on this, with Republican officeholders divesting from institutions that embrace ESG principles. Republican attorneys general launched an investigation into the six biggest Wall Street banks in October, demanding information on their involvement with voluntary net-zero alliances.

Liberal groups and Democratic officials, meanwhile, have demanded more of large financiers to be more aggressive in shunning fossil fuel-related projects.

“The decision to leave the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative is a confirmation of what Vanguard’s intentions have been all along: joining the initiative was just an exercise in greenwashing,” said Jessye Waxman, senior campaign representative with the Sierra Club’s Fossil-Free Finance campaign.

GAS SECTOR TAKING ON BIDEN BUILDING RULE: Natural gas interests were incensed at the Energy Department’s proposed federal building emissions standards, arguing they would increase the burden on taxpayers.

The American Gas Association said it “strongly disagrees” with the proposed rule announced yesterday, which would require new federal buildings and renovated ones to reduce on-site emissions associated with the energy consumption of the building by 90% relative to 2003 levels.

The requirement would go into effect beginning in 2025, and, beginning in 2030, the building standards would require full decarbonization in new federal buildings and major renovations.

AGA pointed to federal data showing natural gas heating to be cheaper than electricity.

The Biden administration has advanced a series of new rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with buildings, including by tightening regulations on appliances like boilers and pool heaters.

KEYSTONE OIL PIPELINE SHUT DOWN AFTER SPILL IN KANSAS: Operators of the Keystone oil pipeline linking the U.S. to Canada said they issued an emergency shutdown of the line today after it began leaking into a creek in Kansas.

Regulators said they have isolated the incident, which occurred some 20 miles south of Steele City, Nebraska, and that an investigation is “ongoing.” They did not give any timeline or estimate as to when operations could restart.

Oil prices climbed on news of the leak, with futures for U.S.-based West Texas Intermediate (WTI) climbing as high as $75.44 per barrel before settling slightly lower.

CHINA BUYS RUSSIAN OIL AT LOWEST POINT IN MONTHS: China is purchasing Russian EPSO crude for the lowest prices in months, well below the capped price set by Western nations, amid weak global demand and fairly low refining margins. EPSO is the crude type most favored by Beijing refiners due to its middle-distillate yield.

China is currently Russia’s largest buyer of Russian crude and has not agreed to comply with the $60 per barrel price cap that took effect on Monday.

China is securing the deliveries via third-party traders tasked with arranging the shipping and insurance of the imports, in an effort to shield its refiners from incurring potential secondary sanctions.

“They [the independent plants] don’t really care about the price cap. All they do is crunch the numbers to see if the delivered prices make good profit or not,” one trading executive with an independent refiner told Reuters.

U.S. GAS PRICES LOWER WERE THEY WERE ONE YEAR AGO: U.S. gas prices dropped to a national average of $3.32 today, according to AAA–the lowest point since January, and a small two-cent decrease from where it stood at the same time last year.

The decline continues a weeks-long trend in gas markets, which have more than erased gains caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The war and resulting energy crisis caused prices to soar to a record-high national average in June of more than $5 per gallon.

BRITAIN APPROVES FIRST COAL MINE IN DECADES, SPARKING CONTROVERSY: The British government approved its first new coal mine in 30 years yesterday, a controversial move that has sparked anger among international climate activists, including U.S. climate envoy John Kerry.

The project, approved by Britain’s levelling-up secretary Michael Gove, is expected to take two years to build, and will produce roughly 2.8 tons of coking coal per year once it is operational. (Coking coal, as it is called in Britain, is used in the production of steel.)

The Rundown

Wall Street Journal EU officials pursue additional sanctions against Russia over Ukraine war

Capitol Beat Georgia Power completes key testing milestone at Plant Vogtle

Calendar

SATURDAY | DECEMBER 10 

Time, location TBD. Thousands of students will protest on the sidelines of the UN Biodiversity summit in Montreal to demand leaders do more to protect the environment from climate change.

The group plans to push leaders to adopt an ambitious, 10-year climate protection program pledging to protect 30% of the world’s land and seas by 2030. (Other efforts include reducing pesticides and curbing the rise of invasive species.)