“While Security spending was somewhat more than his predecessor, Scott Pruitt has received death threats because of his bold actions at EPA. Record clean Air & Water while saving USA Billions of Dollars. Rent was about market rate, travel expenses OK,” Trump wrote, adding, “Scott is doing a great job!”

• It’ll likely play out something like this: The White House takes its time in finishing up its review of the EPA administrator. Most likely, it will be released on a busy news day, or Friday late afternoon or evening, a favorite burying tactic of past administrations.

It might be done before Memorial Day, but could be later. The EPA’s ethics office likely will do the same in issuing any of its reports and actions, sources say.

• Battening down the hatches: In the meantime, Pruitt’s office will batten down the hatches, make sure that all big pay raises are rescinded —  big raises for choice Pruitt aides had been rejected by the White House.

Blame for the big raises and other issues will be apportioned, and apologies, although likely tough to be had, will be issued.

EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson said Tuesday that the pay raises were all his call and not Pruitt’s. “Administrator Pruitt had zero knowledge of the amount of the raises, nor the process by which they transpired,” Jackson said in a statement.

But absent another big issue emerging from the Pruitt camp, which is always a possibility, some think “we are on the downward slope of this problem.” (See below for the latest on Pruitt’s problems.)

Welcome to Daily on Energy, compiled by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers John Siciliano (@JohnDSiciliano) and 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.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS SPLIT ON LETTING CARBON-FREE NUCLEAR POWER DIE: The plight of an Ohio power provider that plans to close three of its nuclear plants is dividing clean energy supporters and environmentalists, who debate whether carbon-free nuclear is worth saving or if wind and solar are ready to pick up the slack.

The impending closure of three of FirstEnergy’s nuclear plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania — and the broader financial struggles of the nuclear industry — presents a challenge to U.S. efforts at lowering greenhouse gas emissions that many scientists say contribute to climate change because nuclear doesn’t emit any greenhouse gases.

• ‘Tragedy’: “There is no doubt losing nuclear plants is a tragedy for clean energy,” Jameson McBride, an energy and climate analyst at the Breakthrough Institute, told Josh.

The U.S. depends on the nation’s 99 nuclear power plants for 60 percent of its carbon-free electricity.

• PJM problems: Nuclear’s importance is especially acute in the PJM Interconnection system, America’s largest competitive power market, spanning 13 states.

The three nuclear plants that FirstEnergy plans to shut down by 2021, plus Exelon’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant, which is scheduled to close next year, produced more energy than all of the wind and solar generation combined in PJM.

• ‘Better mousetrap’: Other clean energy advocates argue that wind and solar, which have seen huge reductions in development costs, are ready to replace nuclear power.

“We are in the 21st century and have simply built a better mousetrap to stop climate change, and that is renewable energy,” Damon Moglen, a senior strategic adviser focused on nuclear energy at Friends of the Earth, told Josh. “Renewable energy is kicking the [butt] of the nuclear and fossil fuel industry in producing low-cost, clean energy.”

PJM PROPOSES PRICING PLAN TO KEEP PLANTS FROM RETIRING: PJM on Monday proposed a new pricing plan to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that would change the way power generation capacity is sold in its market, aiming to keep fossil fuel generators from retiring to maintain the reliability of the system.

The plan is meant to address the concerns of fossil fuel producers who say that state subsidies for nuclear power and renewables are undercutting their profits.

• How it would work: Under the current pricing process, PJM holds an annual auction to provide revenue to plants for the cost of producing power. But critics say providers that receive subsidies don’t bid their actual costs, lowering the price, or revenue, for everyone.

PJM proposes a new two-step bidding process. The first would be open to all generators. Subsidized plants that win bids in the first step would have their payments reduced in the second stage, “resulting in a competitive price for all resources,” PJM said.

• ‘High price’: Environmentalists criticized the proposal, arguing it would increase consumers’ bills.

“That’s a high price to pay for a problem that doesn’t even exist right now,” said Jennifer Chen, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Sustainable FERC Project.

PJM asked for FERC to decide on the proposal by June 29.

NEW ENGLAND FACES ‘HORROR STORY’ OF EXPENSIVE POWER: New England is struggling to keep the lights on as it pursues aggressive clean energy goals, a dilemma that is so troublesome that the region’s power grid operator warns of blackouts if something doesn’t change.

“I am getting nervous in New England,” said Robert Powelson, a Republican commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, during a recent event hosted by the American Council on Renewable Energy. “It is almost like a horror story.”

• High rates, no solution: Residents living in the six New England states face the highest electricity rates in the country, 56 percent above the national average.

Yet lawmakers and regulators have repeatedly rejected projects, from wind and water power to natural gas pipelines, that could ease the situation.

The region is heavily dependent on cheap natural gas, accounting for about half of its power generation, for electricity and home heating, as many of New England’s aging and uneconomic coal and nuclear plants have retired.

• Strained ‘bridge’: Natural gas emits less carbon pollution than coal and is seen as a “bridge” to an era when renewable energy sources take over. But New England struggles to import enough natural gas from areas that produce it, such as the Marcellus shale formation in the Appalachian states, especially during the winter because of a lack of sufficient pipelines.

The region was forced to use dual-fuel power plants to burn carbon-laden oil for electricity during January’s deep freeze, known as the “bomb cyclone,” using about 2 million barrels. That’s more than twice the oil burned in all of 2016, according to ISO New England, the operator that runs the region’s power grid.

Experts, regulators, and grid operators have called on policymakers in New England to permit the construction of more pipelines, or other energy infrastructure, such as transmission lines.

Read the full story about New England’s power problems here.

REPUBLICANS TO TRUMP: TELL EPA TO STOP ETHANOL WAIVERS: Five Republican senators want Trump to stop the EPA from letting oil refiners off the hook from blending corn ethanol into the nation’s fuel supply.

• Unprecedented: The senators wrote in a letter to Trump Monday that the EPA is acting in an “unprecedented manner” to benefit some of the country’s largest refiners by granting waivers meant for small companies. The waivers are “incongruent” with the EPA’s own legal definition for the Renewable Fuel Standard waivers.

• Cease and desist: “We therefore urge you to call on the EPA to cease all RFS waiver action until the agency’s administration of the RFS can proceed in a more transparent and impartial manner,” the letter read. “We are concerned that any continued action will further undermine the RFS and violate the the good-faith discussions you have fostered toward a true win-win solution.”

PERRY TEAMS WITH MANUFACTURERS TO BOOST ENERGY EFFICIENCY: Energy Secretary Rick Perry started a partnership with manufacturers to boost energy efficiency at their plants.

“Working alongside our private-sector partners, we are driving cost savings and a stronger, more secure U.S. industrial base,” Perry said.

The Department of Energy announced the new partnership with the National Association of Manufacturers called the Sustainability in Manufacturing partnership.

• Drive innovation: “The Sustainability in Manufacturing partnership will provide DOE and the NAM the opportunity to engage directly with manufacturers, identify opportunities for energy efficiency improvements, and serve as a platform to recognize companies and leaders that have led the way in the application of innovative strategies,” the Energy Department said.

PERRY TRAVELS TO INDIA FOR HIGH-LEVEL ENERGY TALKS: Perry will travel to India next week to discuss the future of the U.S. energy relationship with high-level officials on the subcontinent.

• LNG arrives in India: The meeting comes as the first shipments of U.S.-produced liquefied natural gas begin to arrive in India this month, an administration official pointed out to the Washington Examiner.

• Lots of meetings: Perry will be having “multiple bilateral meetings” during the trip, Energy Department spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said.

EPA OFFICIAL SUGGESTS PRUITT KNEW ABOUT, APPROVED HEFTY SALARY RAISE: An internal email suggests that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt knew and approved of a controversial pay raise for a favored aide last month, even though he has said he knows nothing about the raise.

Top staffers became aware of an email exchange between the EPA’s human resources division and one of the two aides that received the highly talked about pay increase last month, the Atlantic reported.

• Sign off: In the exchange, senior counsel to the administrator Sarah Greenwalt wrote to HR to confirm that her pay raise of $56,765 was being processed.

“[Greenwalt] definitively stated that Pruitt approves and was supportive of her getting a raise,” said an EPA official who saw the email chain. The email “essentially says, ‘The administrator said that I should get this raise,’” another administration official confirmed.

Pruitt has maintained publicly that he was not aware of the raises, and has repeated that in multiple news interviews.

EPA CHIEF OF STAFF DENIES PRUITT KNEW ABOUT RAISES, TAKES RESPONSIBILITY: EPA Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson on Monday night said he, not Pruitt, authorized the raises.

“Administrator Pruitt had zero knowledge of the amount of the raises, nor the process by which they transpired. These kind of personnel actions are handled by EPA’s HR officials, Presidential Personnel Office and me,” Jackson said in a statement first reported by Politico.

• Raise the roof: “Both individuals were to be paid at a level similar to their peers given their responsibilities over the past year,” Jackson added, explaining why the staff members received the raises. “Their original salaries started lower than peers due to previous salary history having moved to the Washington, D.C., area.”

Jackson reiterated Pruitt’s assertion that the raises have been killed.

EPA REVIEW UNDERCUTS PRUITT’S NEED FOR 24/7 SECURITY, DEMS SAY: Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Tom Carper of Delaware said Tuesday that have seen several internal EPA documents, which they are keeping confidential, that found no specific credible security threats to Pruitt.

“It is hard to reconcile the public statements of EPA, and the president, with these internal and external assessments,” the senators said in a letter to Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman John Barrasso, R-Wyo., which was obtained by the New York Times and Washington Post.

The senators acknowledged the materials may be incomplete.

“However, another view is that certain factions within EPA have justified the exorbitant taxpayer spending incurred by the administrator’s first-class travel and large entourage of security personnel through unsubstantiated claims about threats to his security, either at the direction of the administrator himself or others in the agency,” they said.

Pruitt is the first EPA administrator to have an around-the-clock security detail. The Associated Press last week reported the EPA has spent about $3 million on his security, including travel and overtime pay for Pruitt’s detail.

SCHUMER CALLS ON TRUMP TO FIRE PRUITT ‘IMMEDIATELY:’ Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called Monday for Trump to fire Pruitt “immediately” after a string of reports calling into question his ethics and use of taxpayer funds as head of the agency.

• ‘Drain the swamp’: “If there was ever somebody that characterizes the swamp, it is Scott Pruitt,” Schumer said Monday on the Senate floor. “What Pruitt is doing is just incredible. In a relatively brief tenure at EPA, he’s amassed an embarrassing list of scandals.”

“President Trump: If you truly mean to drain the swamp — and it doesn’t seem that you do — you ought to fire Administrator Pruitt immediately,” Schumer said. “Accept his resignation and let him leave, which alone will clean up Washington in a way that Pruitt has not cleaned up our environment.”

• Scorecard: Schumer’s call for Pruitt’s firing echoes that of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and a host of other Democrats who have been doing so in recent days.

Some Republicans have also asked Pruitt to resign, while others have said they are awaiting more information from ongoing investigations.

GREEN GROUP SUES INTERIOR OVER CALIFORNIA PROJECT: The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Interior Department Tuesday for not providing records related to the agency’s decision to allow a California groundwater mining project to move forward.

The group filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

• Water way: Late last year the Interior Department reversed an Obama-era decision and paved the way for the Cadiz project, which would pump 16 billion gallons of water a year from a desert aquifer. Water would be sent through a 43-mile pipeline across Mojave Trails National Monument to feed developments in Southern California.

• ‘Nothing to hide?’ The Center for Biological Diversity has filed multiple Freedom of Information Act requests for information about the project, as well as for the schedules and communications of Interior officials who have worked on the issue, but has not received a response.

“If Trump’s Interior Department had nothing to hide on the Cadiz water-mining scheme, it would quickly turn over these public records,” said Bill Snape, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We need to know whether [Ryan] Zinke and his aides are holding secret meetings with political allies willing to destroy public lands and wildlife for short-term profits.”

RUNDOWN

Wall Street Journal Big Oil’s new favorite toy: supercomputers

Reuters U.N. shipping agency under pressure to tackle growing CO2 emissions

Bloomberg Apple’s entire business is now being powered with clean energy

New York Times How do you count endangered species? Look to the stars

Wall Street Journal Exxon, Qatar in talks on U.S. shale deal