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THE PUSH TO GET TRUMP TO EMBRACE INNOVATION AGENDA IN THE STATE OF THE UNION: Republicans and allied business groups are pushing President Trump to endorse a “clean energy innovation” legislative agenda during his State of the Union address.
“We want to get a message across to the administration that this is high on our priority list and something that will make a significant difference with regard to energy and climate policy,” said Martin Durbin, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute. “We would like to see the president lean in as well and say something.”
Durbin was responding to a question from Josh on a press call Monday, in which the Chamber described the innovation agenda as one of its top three priorities ahead of the State of the Union Tuesday night.
He argued that Trump’s support would encourage Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring for a vote a number of bills that have already passed energy and environment committees.
What’s on the agenda: These include the USE It Act supporting carbon capture utilization and direct air capture research; the LEADING Act to accelerate R&D into carbon capture for gas plants; the Nuclear Energy Leadership Act to spur the development of advanced nuclear technologies; and the BEST Act directing the Energy Department to establish a R&D and demonstration program for grid-scale energy storage.
While the bills are bipartisan, congressional Republicans are pushing these as central to their innovation agenda.
“House and Senate Republicans have real solutions that are ready to pass, and an endorsement from the president would be enormously helpful,” said Rich Powell, executive director of ClearPath, a conservative clean energy group.
The American Petroleum Institute, whose support for climate change legislation is more narrowly focused on carbon capture, also said Trump’s involvement would be essential.
“It’s imperative that the White House and Congress prepare for projected growth in global energy demand with forward-looking policies that foster continuous innovation,” Bethany Aronhalt, an API spokeswoman, told Josh.
Yet Trump isn’t likely to be moved: The White House has signaled Trump’s priorities haven’t changed, and that he’s likely to tout the administration’s deregulatory agenda and boast about record U.S. energy production.
“He’ll talk about how the energy revolution has really lifted everybody up in terms of lower gasoline prices, lower energy prices,” a senior Trump administration official told reporters last week previewing the president’s address.
Despite modifying his rhetoric when asked about climate change, Trump has not proposed addressing it, and that’s unlikely to change at the State of the Union, a Trump administration source told Josh.
Trump will, however, reiterate his support for a global initiative to plant a trillion trees, which he first endorsed at the World Economic Forum last month.
Trump has also signed bills in the past to reduce emissions, such as legislation promoting hydropower and nuclear energy, noted Rep. Greg Walden, the top Republican of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
“President Trump has already been a great partner,” Walden told Josh.
But a more proactive endorsement from the president on other clean energy bills would “absolutely” be helpful, Walden said.
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.
ONE THING WE DO KNOW FROM IOWA: We don’t know the results, but we can confirm Democractic caucusgoers do really care about climate change.
About a quarter of Democratic Iowans said climate change was their most important issue when deciding who to support, according to reporting from CNN on caucus entrance polls. Only healthcare topped climate as caucusgoers’ priority, with 42% choosing healthcare as their most important issue.
AP polling prior to the caucuses found Iowans who chose climate as their top issue were more likely to support Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. Nearly 90% of Democratic caucusgoers backed a carbon tax, the AP polling also found.
CONSERVATIVE AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM SAYS NO TO GAS TAX HIKE. “Raising the gas tax will disproportionately harm lower- and middle-income Americans while encouraging further wasteful spending,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, in a letter to members of Congress Tuesday.
House Democrats released a $760 billion infrastructure proposal last week that does not indicate how the investments would be paid for. The spending includes $34 billion for clean energy, with much of that going to upgrading the electric grid to accommodate more renewable energy and strengthen grid resilience.
Democrats and business groups such as the Chamber of Commerce have floated the idea of a gas tax increase to pay for infrastructure investments. For 25 years, the federal tax on gasoline has been unchanged at 18.4 cents per gallon and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel. It is not indexed to inflation.
PRESSURE ON FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC TO PREPARE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE: Senate Democrats on Monday said it is “critical” that the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are accounting for climate change.
Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and Brian Schatz of Hawaii asked the GSEs to describe any risk modeling they do to understand the threats of extreme weather on housing and commercial property markets, and to explain the types of insurance they require homeowners to obtain to reduce risk.
GRIJALVA SEEKS SUBPOENA POWER: The Natural Resources Committee will vote Thursday on whether to grant Democratic chairman Raul Grijalva the power to issue subpoenas. The committee is one of a few in the House that does not automatically provide subpoena power to the chair, Grijalva’s office said Monday.
His office said Grijalva needs that authority because the Interior Department has failed to provide “complete or nearly complete” responses to most of Democrats’ request for information.
Committee Republicans are opposing what ranking member Rob Bishop said would be an “unprecedented power grab” by Democrats.
INDIANA’S CLIMATE MAYOR: James Brainard, one of Indiana’s longest serving mayors, is redesigning his city to address climate change.
The seven-term Republican mayor of Carmel, Indiana, has been speaking up about climate change for years, even before members of his party on Capitol Hill were forming a strategy to address the issue.
Brainard sees improving city design as one of the best ways for cities to address emissions. One of his more famous projects: Knocking out more than 100 of Carmel’s intersections and replacing them with roundabouts, which city engineers say will reduce carbon emissions by 26,000 tons this year.
Read Abby’s profile of Brainard in this week’s Washington Examiner magazine.
STATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL URGE STRONG EPA ACTION ON ‘FOREVER CHEMICALS’: More than a dozen state attorneys general are urging the Environmental Protection Agency to list all per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, as a single category in its Toxic Release Inventory. That step would require companies to report annually how much is being released into the environment.
The EPA should also individually list 20 PFAS substances under the inventory, requiring even more reporting for those specific compounds, the 18 state attorneys general wrote in comments to the agency Monday. The attorneys general are also recommending a one-pound threshold because PFAS are known to be toxic at extremely low levels.
More information about PFAS releases “is especially important to the state governments we represent because states commonly bear the brunt of remediation costs when chemicals like PFASs are mismanaged or discharged to the environment,” the attorneys general write. They praised Congress for passing several PFAS-related provisions in the defense authorization bill last year that, in part, added several PFAS chemicals to the Toxic Release Inventory already.
The Rundown
Wall Street Journal The auto industry wanted easier environmental rules. It got chaos.
Reuters Electric future: Britain to ban new petrol and hybrid cars from 2035
New York Times Japan races to build new coal-burning power plants, despite the climate risks
Bloomberg Clean power so cheap a staunch defender of US coal went green
Wall Street Journal Maine to consider vote on power-line project’s fate
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | FEB. 5
9 a.m. 1300 Longworth. The House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis holds a hearing entitled “Creating a Climate Resilient America: Overcoming the Health Risks of the Climate Crisis.”
10 a.m. 2318 Rayburn. The House Science Committee holds a hearing on “management and spending challenges within the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.”
10 a.m. 2322 Rayburn. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Energy Subcommittee holds a hearing on “Modernizing the Natural Gas Act to Ensure it Works for Everyone.”
10 a.m. 406 Dirksen. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a hearing on “Oversight of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”
THURSDAY | FEB. 6
10 a.m. 2123 Rayburn. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee holds a hearing on the “USE It Act” entitled, “Clearing the Air: Legislation to Promote Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage.”
2 p.m. 2154 Rayburn. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s Environment Subcommittee holds a hearing on “The Trump Administration’s Proposal to Undermine Protections from Mercury Air Toxics Standards.”
FRIDAY | FEB. 7
10:30 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. The Atlantic Council hosts Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette for a fireside chat on international energy cooperation.
