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UTILITY INDUSTRY DESCENDS ON WASHINGTON WITH AN AX TO GRIND: A large swath of the utility industry is facing a familiar fight with the federal government over the Trump administration’s proposed sell-off and privatization of federally owned utility companies such as the massive Tennessee Valley Authority.

The idea has spanned both Democratic and Republican administrations for three decades and is being rebooted by the Trump administration, said Sue Kelly, president and CEO of the American Public Power Association, representing 2,000 public utilities that provide energy to 49 million people across 49 states.

• Both parties get it wrong: “It’s a bipartisan bad proposal,” Kelly told the Washington Examiner ahead of this week’s legislative rally her group is holding in Washington. Her members will carry that message to Capitol Hill during the first half of the week.

The idea doesn’t seem to ever die, she said. In the past, the idea of messing with the federal public utilities has forced her group and others to battle federal agencies to convince administrations that tinkering with the nation’s public utilities is a bad idea.

• Obama and Trump have something in common: “It keeps coming up through different administrations,” she said. Former President Barack Obama, “for a couple of years, through his administration, proposed to sell TVA, and it took a couple of years for them to finally figure out that was really not a useful exercise,” Kelly said.

Former Energy Secretary Steven Chu, under Obama, issued a memo that proposed to turn the utilities into test beds of innovation for new clean energy technologies. That would have moved them far afield from their legally defined mandate and purpose, she said.

TRUMP TO TAKE ON ETHANOL PROGRAM EARLY IN THE WEEK: President Trump is expected to sit down with Republican senators on Tuesday to discuss the fate of the Renewable Fuel Standard, requiring refiners to blend corn ethanol in the nation’s gasoline supply.

• Corn and oil at the Trump table: The meeting will include Iowa Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, who support keeping the ethanol standard intact. On the other side of the debate, also at the meeting, will be GOP Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. Those two want the administration to do something about the high cost of the Environmental Protection Agency’s RFS program on refiners.

• Refiner forced to close: Toomey’s state is the home of the largest oil refiner on the East Coast, Philadelphia Energy Solutions, which filed for bankruptcy protection last month over the high cost of buying renewable identification number credits, or RINs, in order to abide by the nation’s ethanol mandate.  

• Trump to meet with Cabinet on Monday: Trump, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue will discuss changes to the ethanol mandate on Monday at a lunch meeting with White House officials and the president.

• What path is right for RFS reform: It is unclear, however, whether the administration will do anything administratively to address the RFS through agency rulemaking. Instead, it is more likely that Trump will place the onus on Congress to devise a deal on RFS reform through legislation.

• Drafting legislation: Republican Majority Whip Sen. John Cornyn of Texas is currently drafting a bill, but his office is being tight lipped about the details of what it will contain.

• Hard at work: “He’s working hard to unify all stakeholders in a consensus effort to reform the Renewable Fuel Standard,” a Cornyn aide tells John.

“The legislation is still being drafted,” but there is no announcements about a timeline, according to the aide.

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ZINKE ANNOUNCE $300 MILLION IN GRANTS FOR ABANDONED COAL MINES: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke traveled to Fredericktown, Pa., on Saturday to announce his department is providing $300.7 million to states to clean up hazardous abandoned coal mines.

The grants will be divided among 25 states and Native American tribes.

• ‘Conservation in action’: “Restoring the usability of abandoned mine lands is an example of the Department of the Interior’s multiple-use mission of conservation in action,” Zinke said. “Interior will continue helping states and tribes responsibly develop America’s energy resources and address legacy problems related to 200 years of mining.”

• Pay to play: The fiscal year 2018 funding is higher than the previous year, when the department offered $180 million in Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) funds, which is allocated according to a congressionally mandated formula based on states’ and tribes’ past and current coal production. Coal companies pay fees for the purposes of mine reclamation that make up the fund. Mines abandoned before 1977 are eligible for the money.

Pennsylvania will receive $55.7 million of the total 2018 funds, the second largest disbursement behind Wyoming, slated to get $91.3 million.

RYAN ZINKE CREDITS TRUMP WITH US OIL BOOM, LOWER FUEL PRICES: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke credited President Trump on Friday with spurring on the oil and natural gas boom that began nearly a decade ago, and said the administration’s deregulation and tax reform agenda helped it along.

“And the numbers will show you, we produce today about 10.3 million barrels [of oil] a day in this country. And for the first time in 60 years, we are a net exporter of liquid natural gas. And that’s President Donald Trump,” Zinke told the Conservative Political Action Conference.

• Not quite as simple as Zinke put it: Record oil production and the U.S. shift to becoming a net exporter of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, last year all occurred under Trump’s watch. But the market shift that enabled it was well under way before Trump entered office.

The policy that enabled record oil production was worked out through Republican and Democratic spending bill deals during the previous administration that removed the 40-year ban on oil exports, which has helped boost oil production from fracking by opening up a global market for the fuel.

• Fuel prices: Oil prices have risen during Trump’s time in office, which has made it more profitable for drillers to increase production. Oil and fuel prices have also gone up under the president’s watch.

TRUMP’S ENERGY DOMINANCE IS ABOUT ‘EXPORTING FREEDOM,’ RICK PERRY TELLS CPAC: Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Friday that President Trump’s pursuit of “energy dominance” is a mission to export freedom globally by being a top producer of natural gas.

“We just don’t export American [liquefied natural gas (LNG)] around the world, we export freedom,” Perry said on Friday while addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference being held just outside of Washington in Oxon Hill, Md.

The countries that receive U.S. energy in the form of LNG “are free from countries that would place those countries’ values in jeopardy,” he said.

Perry called “exporting freedom” a new U.S. mission for the 21st century.

The U.S. became a net natural gas exporter in 2017, and is projected to be a net oil exporter in 2020.

NEW COALITION TOUTS CARBON CAPTURE PROGRESS AFTER WIN IN CONGRESS: Few carbon capture and storage projects have been developed to date, mostly because of high costs.

But members of a new coalition supporting carbon capture and storage (CCS) say that will change after Congress this month extended and expanded an existing tax credit to help fund the projects.

• ‘Very attractive’ economics: “Now, with [the tax credit], the economics are looking very attractive,” said Roger Ballentine, a consultant and board member of 8 Rivers Capital, which is financing a carbon capture project near Houston. “People are asking, should I do this. Before, those conversations weren’t even happening.”

• Same group, different faces: The Carbon Capture Coalition is a rebranded and larger version of the six-year-old National Enhanced Oil Recovery Initiative that focused on projects that capture carbon to extract crude oil from wells.

The coalition features 12 new members, bringing the total to 48, with additions including the Bipartisan Policy Center, ClearPath Foundation, Shell, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America and the National Farmers Union.

It will have a bigger focus on promoting technology that captures carbon emissions from not just power-sector sources, such as coal and natural gas plants, but also industrial facilities.

• Why CCS matters: Carbon capture can be used at facilities from refineries to iron and steel plants, and industrial sources make-up about one-fifth of U.S. carbon emissions.

Carbon capture and storage will be key to fulfilling the goal of the Paris climate change agreement to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the limit at which many scientists say the world would see irreversible effects of climate change.

CCS technology removes carbon dioxide from a power plant’s exhaust, so as to not release it into the atmosphere. The carbon can be cooled and injected as a liquid underground. Some technologies can use the captured carbon for other energy uses.

• Progress, slowly: Industry supporters of carbon capture say progress is happening.

Chris Romans, senior manager of government relations at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, said the Petra Nova plant outside Houston last year prevented 1 million tons of carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere, the equivalent of taking more than 200,000 cars off the road.

Technology firm NET Power, partially owned by 8 Rivers Capital, is building a small natural gas-fired power plant in La Porte, Texas, that would emit no greenhouse gases. It’s only a demonstration project, but Ballentine of 8 Rivers Capital said the expanded tax credit is a “major wind on our back” to commercialize the project.

• More hopes for Congress: The coalition also hopes to amplify its success with extending the tax credit by having a voice in the upcoming debate over President Trump’s $2 billion infrastructure spending plan.

It aims to support funding for pipelines that can transport captured carbon emissions for commercial use.

JUDGE DISMISSES COAL BARON BOB MURRAY’S LAWSUIT AGAINST JOHN OLIVER: HBO and “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver has won a months-long legal battle against Appalachian coal magnate Bob Murray over a segment that mocked him and his coal business.

A judge in West Virginia threw out the defamation lawsuit this week, recognizing the defendants’ First Amendment motion to dismiss the case.

• Tit-for-tat: Back in June of last year, Oliver dedicated a large portion of his show to lambasting Murray for some of his statements, calling him a “geriatric Dr. Evil,” and some of the health and safety practices at Murray Energy Corp.

That was in spite of a cease-and-desist letter warning against any efforts to “defame, harass, or otherwise injure” Murray or his company.

Following through on its threat, Murray sued.

In response, the HBO stated it would stand by Oliver.

• What’s next: Following the dismissal of the case, Murray Energy has 30 days to appeal the judge’s decision. The judge also invited Oliver and his team to write up a statement of “findings of fact and conclusions of law” supporting the ruling to be submitted within 20 days.

RESEARCHERS DISCOVER FOSSILS IN AREA TRUMP REMOVED FROM BEARS EARS: Researchers have discovered a huge cache of pre-dinosaur fossils located in an area that President Trump cut off from the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.

The researchers found remains of crocodile-like animals called phytosaurs.

Paleontologist Rob Gay and other researchers announced the findings this week at the Western Association of Vertebrate Paleontologists conference at Dixie State University in St. George, Utah.

• Funding flow runs dry: Gay, a contractor at the Museums of Western Colorado, told Josh that his project was funded by a $25,000 grant from a Bureau of Land Management program that supports research on national monuments. The researchers hope to continue to make more discoveries in the area.

But Gay says the BLM funding is now unavailable because Trump removed protections of the region in December when he shrunk the 1.35-acre Bears Ears by more than 1 million acres. When the site was part of Bears Ears, BLM-funded research was allowed.

Gay says he doesn’t have enough funding to buy needed supplies, pay researchers to do additional excavation work, or feed volunteers.

• Vulnerable to looting: He said the site had been looted during the course of his research, and worries the area is vulnerable without national monument protection.

The 1906 Antiquities Act gives presidents unilateral authority to declare national monuments to protect archaeologically important areas.

• Legal fight: The Trump administration and congressional Republicans argue that previous presidents abused their authority under the Antiquities Act. Tribes and environmental groups have sued Trump for shrinking Bears Ears. The cases are pending.

FEDERAL COURT SAYS TRUMP MUST ENFORCE OBAMA-ERA METHANE RULE: A federal court ruled late Thursday that the Trump administration must enforce an Obama-era rule intended to cut methane emissions from natural gas drilling on public land.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management announced in December a two-year delay in implementing the Obama administration’s rule.

Environmental groups and state attorneys general sued in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

• ‘Untethered to evidence’: Judge William Orrick granted a preliminary injunction against the BLM, blocking its effort to delay enforcement of the Obama rule.

“The BLM’s reasoning behind the Suspension Rule is untethered to evidence contradicting the reasons for implementing the Waste Prevention Rule, and so plaintiffs are likely to prevail on the merits,” Orrick, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote in the ruling.

• What’s in a rule: The Obama rule requires oil and natural gas operations on public lands to capture natural gas that is leaked, vented or flared. Methane, the main component in natural gas, is more potent than carbon dioxide, although its greenhouse gas emissions are relatively short-lived.

The Trump administration earlier this month proposed a revised, more modest version of the Obama-era methane rule, arguing it was duplicative with federal regulations and state requirements that also regulate methane emissions.

RUNDOWN

Politico Anti-secrecy lawsuits soaring against Pruitt’s EPA

Reuters U.S. energy drilling boom could mean $6 billion in federal well cleanups

New York Times Fortified but still in peril, New Orleans braces for its future

Washington Post The Venezuelan oil industry is on a cliff’s edge. Trump could tip it over.

Bloomberg U.S. ban on key oil material could choke Venezuelan production

New York Times Lower oil prices force Saudis to widen their circle of friends

Wall Street Journal New England struggles to meet electricity needs and green power goals

NBC News Wind power becoming more popular in Texas

Bloomberg Can green energy beat Lebanon’s ‘generator mafias?’