Daily on Energy: Brouillette gliding to confirmation with support for clean energy

Brouillette seemed intent on proving he’d not be a lacky for Trump, whose agenda is expanding production and exports of fossil fuels, declaring at the open that “our energy story also includes historic growth in renewable energy.”

He clinched an easy confirmation through the Senate Energy Committee even before uttering a word, with top Democrat Joe Manchin confirming he is “proud to support” Brouillette’s nomination. The Senate confirmed Brouillette for his current role of deputy energy secretary — Perry’s second-in-command — in August 2017 with a bipartisan 79-17 vote.

He gave a laundry list of support for clean technology: Brouillette pleased senators by vowing to “fight” for programs like ARPA-E, the department’s advanced research agency that Trump has tried and failed to cut funding for.

He said the U.S. has “an obligation if we care about the climate” to help commercialize carbon capture technologies by supporting research to reduce cost. Brouillette “absolutely” favors increasing research into nascent direct air capture technologies that could swipe C02 directly from the sky.

The Energy Department under his watch as “chief operating officer” is “reviving nuclear energy,” a zero-carbon resource, by helping develop small advanced reactors.

Brouillette supports efforts to boost the buildout of transmission lines to allow wind and solar power to be moved from producing areas to consuming ones, he assured Democrat Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. While transmission is crucial to growing the use of renewables, the department has also identified transmission as “critical infrastructure” key to the resilience of the grid.

Growing the use of energy storage is needed to back-up intermittent renewables, and to layer resilience onto the grid, and the U.S. should increase “engagement” in the Arctic to develop minerals that can be used to produce batteries, Brouillette said.

“We see the Arctic for the purpose of not only extractive oil and gas, but expanded beyond that, as we move to a world of more and more renewable energy, our ability to produce storage is more critical,” he said.

Ukraine questions didn’t trip him up: Brouillette also managed a few questions from Democrats about Ukraine, the focus of the House’s impeachment inquiry of Trump.

Brouillette said he has not “been involved in any of the conversations” on Ukraine related to the impeachment inquiry because that is not a matter that generally involves day-to-day operations of DOE, which he oversees. He said his focus has been on giving “technical” advice to Ukraine, at the country’s request, on interconnecting its grid and pipelines, and reducing dependence on Russian gas.

He said he would “make myself available” if he received a subpoena from lawmakers related to the inquiry. Perry has not complied with a congressional subpoena for information.

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.

BIDEN’S CLIMATE-INFUSED INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN: Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s $1.3 trillion infrastructure plan will help achieve his goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.

Climate change is front and center in Biden’s plan to rebuild America’s roads and bridges, released Thursday morning.

His plans pledges that every federal dollar spent on rebuilding infrastructure “will be used to prevent, reduce, and withstand the impacts of this climate crisis.”

He would invest in expanding public transit systems; help state and local governments plan for the “widespread” adoption of electric cars; work to construct a national electric-vehicle charging network with 500,000 outlets; give homeowners and businesses incentives to retrofit their buildings to reduce their carbon footprints; and construct net-zero carbon federal buildings.

Biden also promises to partner with utilities and regulators to modernize the power grid to more easily distribute clean energy. He’d appoint FERC commissioners who will “drive market reforms” to better integrate renewables and promote long-term infrastructure planning to achieve a 100% clean energy economy by 2050.

A GREEN NEW DEAL FOR PUBLIC HOUSING: Biden isn’t the only 2020 candidate beefing up his climate plans.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is teaming up with his pal New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, just one week after the duo’s Iowa climate tour, on legislation to slash carbon emissions in federal public housing.

Under their housing plan, which entails $180 billion in spending over 10 years, all U.S. public housing would become zero-carbon, highly energy-efficient, and renewable-energy producing as quickly as possible, according to a one-pager on the bill.

And in true-Green New Deal fashion, the bill is broader than just cutting housing’s emissions. The legislation also prioritizes workforce development by expanding federal programs that offer grants to residents to find work in their public housing communities. The lawmakers expect their bill will create almost 250,000 jobs per year, cut public housing costs by 30%, and reduce energy costs by 70%.

“This bill shows that we can address our climate and affordable housing crises by making public housing a model of efficiency, sustainability, and resiliency,” Sanders said in a statement.

IT’S GONNA COST YA: Even a potentially watered-down version of Trump’s fuel economy rollback would bump consumers’ vehicle and fuel costs by thousands, Consumer Reports says in a report released Wednesday.

The consumer advocacy firm analyzed the economic impacts of a 1.5% annual fuel economy increase — the standard the Trump administration reportedly could settle on instead of a total freeze at 2020 levels. Under a 1.5% annual efficiency increase, a new car’s sticker price could rise by more than $2,000 and fuel per average new vehicle could cost an extra $3,200, Consumer Reports finds.

But automakers could help cut those costs for consumers: Four automakers — Ford, Volkswgen, BMW, and Honda — struck a deal with California regulators to follow vehicle greenhouse gas limits stricter than federal levels.

That voluntary deal leaves consumers better off, particularly if it expands to other automakers, Consumer Reports said. Under the four-auto deal, consumers buying model year 2026 cars would lose around $600, the report said. That’s compared to a $3,300 net loss for MY2026 buyers under frozen limits, as the Trump administration initially proposed.

CLIMATE CHANGE IS BAD FOR HUMAN HEALTH: And kids are right to be worried about it, a new report from nearly three dozen academic institutions and United Nations agencies says.

“The life of every child born today will be profoundly affected by climate change,” reads the Lancet Countdown, an annual snapshot of how climate change is impacting human health. “Without accelerated intervention, this new era will come to define the health of people at every stage of their lives.”

If this report sounds depressing, that’s because it is: The effects of climate change on human health are only getting worse, the scientists say.

For example, more than 220 million additional people were exposed to heatwaves in 2018, the highest exposure count on record, the report, published Wednesday, says. Global warming also made 2018 a great year for diseases to run amok, with the second highest suitability on record for the transmission of certain diseases and infections.

TRUMP’S CONFUSING OIL STORY: The U.S. left troops in Syria “only for the oil,” Trump said Wednesday, contradicting his military officials who have said the continued military forces would help fight ISIS.

“We’re keeping the oil. We have the oil. The oil is secure. We left troops behind, only for the oil,” Trump told reporters before hosting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in a White House meeting.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper described the mission differently Wednesday.

“Our mission is the enduring defeat of ISIS,” Esper told reporters.“We’re going to have about 500 to 600-ish troops there, at the end of the day.”

He said protecting the oil fields is part of a larger strategy of defeating ISIS.

“A way that we ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS is deny them access to the oil fields because if they have access to the oil fields, they can generate revenue. If they can generate revenue, then they can pay fighters, they can buy arms, they can conduct operations. They can do all those things because the revenue enables them. So that’s how the mission relates,” Esper said.

UNDER THE SEA: The White House wants to make a big play on oceans research and policy, building on an executive order Trump signed last year.

“The Trump administration from day one has been very, very committed to oceans,” Kelvin Droegemeir, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said Thursday at the White House Summit on Partnerships in Ocean Science and Technology.

Droegemeier wants the Trump administration — along with partners in the states, in industry, conservation groups, and private foundations — to set a bold oceans agenda, “to steward it, explore it, and utilize its vast resources.”

A bold agenda, though, will require more research dollars: Barry Gold, director of the environment program at the Walton Family Foundation, estimated the U.S. ocean research budget is currently less than 1% of what the country’s ocean economy contributes to GDP.

“I suspect it’s not what any of us would want, and it’s not adequate to sustain the kinds of partnerships that we need today,” he told the summit.

HEAD WEST, INTERIOR DEPARTMENT EMPLOYEES TOLD: The Interior Department has issued hundreds of notices to employees warning that they must agree to relocate out West or risk their jobs.

The department plans to move the Bureau of Land Management’s headquarters out of Washington, D.C., to Grand Junction, Colorado, and closer to the land it manages.

As part of the move, 27 positions will be relocated from D.C. to Colorado, and 220 others will be moved to various district offices across the U.S. The employees in those positions received notice on Tuesday that they must agree to move or face removal, according to Government Executive.

The department has offered employees incentives to move out West, such as 25% of their base pay and temporary free housing, but few employees plan to take the offer and instead intend to find other jobs in D.C.

Congressmen upset with Interior’s plans have threatened to gut funding for the BLM. The Interior Department threatened to withdraw employees’ moving incentives if Congress chose to fight the plan.

The Rundown

Reuters Flood, fire and plague: climate change blamed for disasters

Los Angeles Times California will still require rooftop solar panels on new homes — at least for now

Wall Street Journal Temperatures are falling, and so are heating costs

E&E News What we learned on electric road trip

Calendar

THURSDAY | NOVEMBER 14

9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. 1601 K Street, NW. K&L Gates, the Energy Storage Association, and the Edison Electric Institute host this year’s third annual Energy Storage Conference.