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You don’t need us to tell you Joe Biden had a strong night on Super Tuesday, but he also succeeded in unlikely places.
Biden was the preferred candidate of voters who said climate change is the most important issue to them, according to a compilation of exit polls from the 14 states holding primaries reported by the Washington Post.
Biden won 33% of such voters, followed by Bernie Sanders at 28%, Elizabeth Warren at 15%, and Michael Bloomberg (who has since dropped out from the race) at 11%. This result is consistent with polling early in the race (when Biden was leading overall in national polls) finding that voters who said Democratic candidates’ climate plans are “very important” picked Biden as their top choice.
These findings could support a theory posed by former candidate Pete Buttigieg, now a Biden supporter, that Democratic voters don’t care about distinctions between climate plans, and are simply happy to see the field collectively proposing more aggressive policies than ever before.
Biden is not among the favorites of left-leaning climate advocacy groups, who consider his agenda more modest and less detailed than those of Sanders or Warren, and are unimpressed how infrequently he talks about the issue on the campaign trail. Both Biden and Sanders Tuesday night described climate change as an “existential threat” in their post-election speeches.
Previous “climate candidates,” such as Jay Inslee and Tom Steyer, failed to attract voters.
Possible ex-factor: It is true that Biden is struggling with young voters, a demographic dominated by Sanders that especially cares about climate change. The problem for Sanders, however, is young voter turnout has been poor. People aged 18-29 were the least active demographic in an NBC News poll, which included 12 of the 14 Super Tuesday states. Just 13% of voters were from the younger demographic.
The Sunrise Movement, a youth climate group pushing the Green New Deal that has endorsed Sanders, insists that youth support will matter in the general election. The group posted to Twitter exit polls in California showing 72% of voters in the 18-29 age group went for Sanders, with Biden at 5%.
“There is no way to defeat Tr•mp without record youth turnout,” Sunrise tweeted. “@TheDemocrats are planning their own funeral if they nominate Joe.”
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe) and Abby Smith (@AbbySmithDC). 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.
NOT SO SUPER TUESDAY TANKS BLOOMBERG: Bloomberg’s short-lived presidential bid cost him half a billion dollars, but his pitches to centrist Democrats and climate change-focused voters both ultimately fell flat, causing him to end his campaign and endorse Biden.
In fact, many environmentalists were always skeptical of Bloomberg’s candidacy, despite his work on the ground on climate change and his spending millions to help shut down coal plants across the country.
Bloomberg, despite trending more progressive in his spending, staked out more moderate energy positions on the debate stage. For example, he dismissed that the U.S. would be able to ban fracking, as both progressives Sanders and Warren have proposed, and he said he wouldn’t reinstate the crude oil export ban, citing national security concerns.
Bloomberg’s exit leaves Biden as the only centrist voice left in the Democratic race, though even Biden’s climate plan is more aggressive than where Democrats were just four years ago.
EXCLUSIVE…HOUSE REPUBLICANS PROD TRUMP ON CLIMATE CHANGE: House Republicans led by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy are pushing the White House to promote U.S. fossil fuel exports as a way to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change.
McCarthy and the GOP leaders of energy and climate-related committees are preparing to send a letter to White House officials urging them to “ensure that U.S. low carbon technologies and natural resources play a significant role” in replacing dirtier alternatives “peddled by foreign adversaries such as China and Russia.”
“Such a strategic approach would bolster our economy and strengthen global energy security, all while reducing global emissions,” reads the letter, obtained exclusively by Josh.
The missing link: The Trump administration has long encouraged exports of U.S. coal and gas as a way to confront foreign adversaries and lift the economic fortunes of domestic fossil fuel producers. But President Trump does not speak about the opportunity of using U.S. energy resources to reduce emissions.
The White House has been reluctant to embrace a broader climate change agenda promoted by House Republicans designed to respond to polling showing the party’s vulnerability among young and suburban voters concerned about the environment and climate change.
House Republicans view pumping up fossil fuel exports as a way to entice Trump on friendly terrain.
CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK CAUSES RECORD DROP IN WORLD OIL DEMAND: World oil demand will suffer the largest quarterly drop in history because of an unprecedented stoppage in economic activity in China due to the coronavirus outbreak — 3.8 million barrels per day lower than a year earlier, a steeper fall than what occurred during the 2009 financial crisis, according to a new projection Wednesday by London-based research group IHS Markit.
“This is a sudden, instant demand shock — and the scale of the decline is unprecedented,” said Jim Burkhard, IHS Markit’s vice president and head of oil markets.
PARSING EPA’S SUPPLEMENTAL SCIENCE PROPOSAL: The EPA couches the new supplement to its science transparency proposal as simply tweaking its original plans, but environmentalists and former agency officials say it actually broadens the proposal’s reach.
“These additions and clarifications to the proposed rule will ensure that the science supporting the agency’s decisions is transparent and available for independent verification while still maintaining protection of confidential and personally identifiable information,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in a statement.
If you need a refresher: The EPA, under former Administrator Scott Pruitt, proposed restrictions on the types of science the agency can use in policymaking, limiting it to scientific studies where the raw data is made public. The proposal outraged environmental advocates and scientists, who say it would sharply limit what science the EPA can rely upon and jeopardize the EPA’s ability to use epidemiological studies, which use human health data to determine the toxicity of pollutants.
The supplement, released late Tuesday, simply puts a finer point on those restrictions, and in many cases, expands them — to cover all science, data, and models the agency uses, not just that used for regulations. It also appears to narrow the administrator’s ability to exempt studies from the restrictions on a case-by-case basis.
Covering their legal bases: Observers also say the EPA appears to be trying to provide a more solid legal foundation for the rule amid criticism the agency lacks statutory basis to pursue the restrictions.
“They’re trying to go backwards and fix the legal vulnerabilities in the proposed rule,” said Betsy Southerland, former director of science and technology in the EPA’s Office of Water until 2017. “The proposed rule did not even cite a real authority for this really draconian change,” she told Abby.
The EPA, in the supplement, also downplays the entire proposal as simply a change to the agency’s internal policies, a characterization Southerland and others think is intentional to give it more solid legal footing.
That doesn’t mean the agency will have an easy road, though.
“What they’re saying is this just orders the agency’s internal work,” said Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy. “No, it doesn’t. This orders the way that the agency applies science to meet their mission.”
“This basically affects every public health and safety regulation the EPA does,” Rosenberg told Abby.
BUDGET WHIPLASH: Trump in a tweet Tuesday urged Congress to send him a bill to “fully and permanently” fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, even though his own budget request proposed to slash it by nearly 97%.
Trump suggested that two Republican senators up for reelection this cycle — Colorado’s Cory Gardner and Montana’s Steve Daines — would be leading the charge. Such a conservation and environment-focused measure could be a political win particularly for Gardner, who faces a tough race in November.
“When I sign it into law, it will be HISTORIC for our beautiful public lands,” Trump said.
Democrats welcomed Trump’s shift.
“I hope the president is sincere and I would be happy to work across party lines to get this done for the American people,” Senator Tom Udall said at a budget hearing Wednesday morning with Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, who said “I am 100% confident everybody is getting in line” with Trump’s position on LWCF.
Deja vu: Trump pulled a similar move last budget cycle, when he randomly announced during a rally in Michigan he would be asking Congress to fully fund the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. His budget request for FY20 had sought to slash the iniative’s funding by 90%.
Ultimately, the White House budget office had to submit a supplemental budget document to boost its request for Great Lakes funding consistent with Trump’s comments.
BERNHARDT ASSURES UDALL THAT INTERIOR CONSIDERS CLIMATE IN SCIENCE RESEARCH: Bernhardt downplayed an explosive report this week that an official at the Interior Department has pressured agency scientists to make misleading claims about climate change in scientific reports.
“I believe fundamentally the department, in publications, we regularly comment on climate,” Bernhardt said at Wednesday’s budget hearing in response to a question from Udall. “We regularly comment on the fact the climate is changing and we try to have the best science to do that. We follow the best science wherever it leads us.”
Bernhardt acknowledged he had read the report from the New York Times about efforts by Indur Goklany, a longtime career Interior Department employee, to apply language in at least nine agency reports claiming the science behind climate change is overstated and uncertain. Goklany was promoted to the office of the deputy secretary with responsibility for reviewing the agency’s climate policies near the start of the Trump administration in 2017, before Bernhardt took over the agency from Ryan Zinke.
Bernhardt minimized Goklany’s influence, saying he “is a career employee who has these views just like other experts in their fields have views.”
“I have asked to see what has been added in and what’s not,” Bernhardt said of language relating to climate change in science reports. “I will get to the bottom of that.”
Bernhardt said he has returned Goklany back to his original position in the office of policy management and budget.
BIG BANKS EYE CARBON CAPTURE: Investing in the technology is the “next logical step” for big banks to deploy low-carbon capital after wind and solar tax credits expire, said Wim Goethals, a managing director for Wells Fargo’s renewable energy and environmental finance team.
But funding carbon capture projects, even with the enhanced 45Q federal tax credits, is not without risks for big banks like Wells Fargo, and several of those are new risks unique to carbon capture. For example, Goethals, speaking at a forum Tuesday hosted by the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, said carbon capture projects carry a “feedstock risk” that doesn’t exist when financing wind and solar projects.
In other words, investors know there will always be wind blowing and sun shining, though intermittent, to power wind turbines and solar panels. They’re less confident, however, about the future of fossil fuel companies, particularly if policy squeezes production or places limits on its use.
Banks are especially aware of that risk for carbon capture projects paired with enhanced oil recovery, by which carbon dioxide is injected underground to produce more oil. “What happens if that stakeholder goes away, and how do we handle that risk?” Goethals said.
The Rundown
Reuters Fossil fuels for power at turning point as renewables surged in 2019: data
Bloomberg Trump’s best shot at saving coal is an obscure power market
Reuters GM to tout its electric vehicles to investors swooning over Tesla
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | MARCH 4
2:30 p.m. 138 Dirksen. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Energy and Water Development Subcommittee on the agency’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget request.
THURSDAY | MARCH 5
10 a.m. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to examine the latest developments and longer-term prospects for global energy markets, with a special focus on the United States, from the perspective of the International Energy Agency.
