Subscribe today to the Washington Examiner magazine and get Washington Briefing: politics and policy stories that will keep you up to date with what’s going on in Washington. SUBSCRIBE NOW: Just $1.00 an issue!
MAJOR DEMOCRATIC CLIMATE LEGISLATION VS. THE FILIBUSTER: Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday revived an ongoing disagreement in the Democratic presidential race about whether the party should kill the Senate filibuster to pass aggressive legislation to combat climate change.
Reid said Democrats should revoke the filibuster if they take control of the Senate and White House in 2020 specifically to tackle climate change, one of the most partisan issues in the country.
Nixing the filibuster would allow the Senate to pass legislation with a simple majority, rather than a 60-vote minimum.
“[T]he No. 1 priority is climate change. There’s nothing that affects my children, grandchildren, and their children, right now, more than climate,” Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, told the Daily Beast.
“It is not a question of if…It is a question of when we get rid of the filibuster,” he said. “It’s gone.”
Where the candidates stand: Presidential candidate Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington state, has cited the filibuster as the biggest hurdle to his plans to quickly transition the economy off fossil fuels because of likely Republican resistance.
He pounced on Reid’s comments Thursday, after repeatedly attacking front runner Joe Biden for his long-running resistance to ending the filibuster.
“Majority Leader Harry Reid is right: Reid understands that the climate crisis must be the top priority of the next President, and that we must end the filibuster to defeat this beast,” Inslee said in a statement.
Senator Elizabeth Warren and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg have joined Inslee in supporting the end of the filibuster to tackle big issues like climate change.
But candidates who have been long-time members of Congress, such as Biden and Bernie Sanders, oppose killing the filibuster, fearful of upsetting Senate procedure, and having the move turned against them if Republicans were to control the levers of power.
“Ending the filibuster is a very dangerous move,” Biden reporters Thursday at a campaign stop in Iowa.
Another senator and presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, switched her position Thursday and said she’d be open to doing away with the filibuster if Democrats recapture control of the Senate next year.
“I want to find common ground on legislation, but if there’s gonna be the obstructionist kind of tactics we’ve seen, then I’ll get rid of it,” the senator from California told reporters Thursday during a campaign stop in Sioux City, Iowa.
Making sense of Biden’s position: Mike Carr, a former Democratic counsel to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told me it makes sense for candidates to attack the filibuster.
Virtually the entire field has pledged to have the U.S. reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a target that would require policies such as pricing carbon or mandating more use of zero-emission energy sources.
“It is very hard to imagine doing anything sizable without some modification to the procedures in the Senate,” said Carr, who was also an Energy Department official in the Obama administration.
Biden is among those with aggressive climate change platforms, having endorsed the net-zero by 2050 goal. But Carr said he understood why Biden is staying loyal to the filibuster, even if it would seem a barrier to the climate agenda.
“The most generous reading of it is Biden has a long history of figuring out ways to sway his colleagues,” Carr said. “He may not be putting all the pieces together in his mind. He probably really thinks the fever will break, that he can sit down with Republicans and can get some understanding.”
Other former Senate aides, however, told me they don’t see the filibuster as the reason Congress has struggled to pass major policy, and question if ending it would make a difference.
Is the filibuster really the problem? James Wallner, a former executive director of the conservative Senate Steering Committee, says the real challenge is that both Democrats and Republicans remain divided amongst themselves on big issues such as climate change, health care, and immigration. That means it’s no sure thing Democrats could pass a major climate policy even without the filibuster, he said.
“The filibuster is not so much a barrier as it is a convenient villain,” said Wallner, now a senior fellow at R Street. “We don’t have the kind of intra-party agreement to pass these controversial things. Majority control of the Senate does not translate to majority of support for controversial legislation.”
There could be another option: Democrats could work around the filibuster and use a legislative process known as budget reconciliation to pass climate change legislation. Reconciliation is a procedural tool that allows for passing of fiscal measures with a simple majority, and could be a good fit for passing something like a carbon tax.
“You can do a lot on climate change through reconciliation,” Zach Moller of the center-left think tank Third Way and a former Senate Budget Committee aide, told me.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writer Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe). Email [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.
IEA SAYS US-CHINA TRADE WAR IS CRIMPING GLOBAL OIL DEMAND: The International Energy Agency downgraded its forecast for global oil demand Friday for the third time in four months due to “uncertainty” from the U.S. trade war with China.
“The situation is becoming even more uncertain: the US-China trade dispute remains unresolved and in September new tariffs are due to be imposed,” the IEA said in its oil-market report. “Tension between the two has increased further this week. Oil prices have been caught up in the retreat.”
The IEA lowered its projected oil demand growth from 1.2 million barrels per day to 1.1 million barrels per day.
This comes after oil demand from January to May was at its lowest since 2008.
IEA said it expects to issue another downgrade for oil demand in the future because “the outlook is fragile.”
Weaker demand is also resulting in lower oil prices. The Brent crude oil price, the global benchmark, fell to below $57 a barrel this week from a recent high of $67 a barrel.
EPA ISSUES RULE TO REIN IN BLUE STATES FROM BLOCKING PIPELINES: The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule Friday designed to limit blue states’ ability to reject oil and gas pipeline projects.
The proposed rule implements an April executive order from President Trump to rein in how states can use Section 401 of the Clean Water Act. That provision of the law allows states to deny permits if leaks from an energy infrastructure project could harm nearby streams or lakes.
EPA’s rule would put a one-year deadline for states to deny permits in order to promote the “timely review of infrastructure projects.”
“Our proposal is intended to help ensure that states adhere to the statutory language and intent of Clean Water Act,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. “When implemented, this proposal will streamline process for constructing new energy infrastructure projects that are good for American families, American workers, and the American economy.”
The Trump administration, Republican lawmakers, and industry representatives argue some states are abusing the authority and rejecting permits for political reasons, as part of a broader opposition to fossil fuel infrastructure due to climate change.
Democratic states are likely to sue over the proposed rule change. A coalition of 14 state attorneys general, led by California, filed comments to EPA last month warning the agency that limiting the Clean Water Act administratively would be illegal.
The Democratic attorneys general say the law provides states the primary authority to protect water quality within their borders, allowing for “broad discretion” in making decisions over pipeline certifications, and there should not be “arbitrary and unreasonable” time limits imposed on states’ completing water quality reviews.
EPA WON’T APPROVE LABELS THAT SAY ROUNDUP CHEMICAL CAUSES CANCER, IN HIT ON CALIFORNIA: The EPA said Thursday it will not approve “false and misleading” product labels that say the chemical glyphosate causes cancer.
EPA directed the move at California, a long-running opponent of the agency, after the state listed glyphosate, a chemical used in weedkillers, as a carcinogen.
“It is irresponsible to require labels on products that are inaccurate when EPA knows the product does not pose a cancer risk. We will not allow California’s flawed program to dictate federal policy,” Wheeler said.
In April, EPA issued a decision there are “no risks to public health” when glyphosate is used as directed.
The company Bayer, which produces the weedkiller Roundup, has faced thousands of lawsuits from users of the product who say exposure to the chemical caused their cancer.
A California jury last August found agriculture business giant Monsanto liable for causing a groundskeeper’s cancer, in the world’s first ruling on the health effects of Roundup.
CHEVRON BEGINS OPERATING CARBON CAPTURE PROJECT ON AUSTRALIAN LNG PLANT: U.S. oil and gas giant Chevron said Thursday that it has started operating a carbon capture project at one of Australia’s largest liquified natural gas plants.
Chevron says the carbon capture technology installed to the Gorgon natural gas facility off the coast of Western Australia will reduce the plant’s greenhouse gas emissions by about 40%, or more than 100 million tons, over the life of the project, burying about 3.4 and 4 million tons of carbon dioxide underground a year.
“We are pleased to reach the first milestone of safely starting the operation of the Gorgon carbon dioxide injection system, one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas mitigation projects ever undertaken by industry,” said Chevron Australia managing director Al Williams. “This achievement is the result of strong collaboration across industry and governments and supports our objective of providing affordable, reliable and ever-cleaner energy essential to our modern lives.”
The project is the 19th large-scale carbon capture facility in the world, according to the Global CCS Institute.
The Rundown
Los Angeles Times A clean energy breakthrough could be buried deep beneath rural Utah
New York Times US sanctions turn Iran’s oil industry into spy vs. spy
Wall Street Journal The leaks that threaten the clean image of natural gas
Reuters Alaska’s hottest month portends transformation into ‘unfrozen state’
Miami Herald Florida resiliency officer: Climate change ‘absolutely’ means restricting development
Calendar
SUNDAY | August 11
American Wind Week 2019 kicks off, lasting through August 17. During Wind Week, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and supporters of wind energy highlight the “many ways that wind powers opportunity” at dozens of events across the country and online with #AmericanWindWeek.
