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MIDWESTERNERS MAKING THE CASE FOR ETHANOL: Midwesterners in Congress are resolved to make the White House look to their cornfields as it tries to reduce high energy prices.
Lawmakers from both parties have been pressing President Joe Biden to make regulatory changes enabling the blending of higher volumes of renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel with oil-based fuels.
The big push is for Biden to make E15, a blend of 15% ethanol and 85% gasoline, to be made available all year long by ordering the EPA to waive regulations restricting its use during the summer months, when more people hit the roads to vacation.
A proposal by Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, the nation’s no. 2 ethanol producer, to authorize year-round E15 was tacked onto the Home Front Energy Independence Act, which bipartisan corn-state lawmakers introduced after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The overall bill would institute a statutory ban on Russian energy imports and encourage increased use and production of biofuels with added tax incentives.
Fischer told Jeremy the administration’s strategy should incorporate all energy sources and noted ethanol jives with Biden’s preference for renewables.
“We have to have an all-of-the-above approach to energy,” she said, “whether it’s oil or gas, and it has to include renewables — which ethanol is a renewable, biodiesel’s a renewable — wind, solar. I think that diversity brings strength to our energy portfolio in this country.”
Proponents say doing so would save drivers billions of dollars and support rural jobs, while supplementing the fuel mix with fuel that is cheaper on a wholesale basis than gasoline.
A bipartisan group of 29 lawmakers, mostly from midwestern states, wrote Biden on Thursday asking him to support permanent year-round E15, saying it would “significantly increase U.S. energy independence and lessen the domestic impact of our ban on Russian energy imports by replacing them with U.S. biofuels.”
Senators beat them to it. Sens. John Thune and Dick Durbin led a letter asking Biden in early March to support year-round E15 via executive action and said it “will benefit our families and businesses while blunting a vital source of funding for Vladimir Putin’s campaign of destruction.”
A decision enabling more E15 would not be without precedent. The Trump administration took this course of action in the spring of 2019, allowing for year-round sale of E15 through the summers of 2019 and 2020.
Oil refiners, who have long faced off against the biofuel lobby, succeeded in July 2021 in putting a stop to the change after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Trump EPA exceeded its authority by waiving regulations for E15.
Don’t forget the Renewable Fuel Standard: The push for E15 is only part of the story here. Many of these same lawmakers were incensed and have asked the Biden administration to reverse course after EPA’s decision in December to retroactively change Renewable Fuel Standard blending requirements downward, proposing to allow refiners to put less ethanol into their fuels for 2020 and 2021 totals than had been finalized in 2019, while also proposing record volumes for this year.
EPA cited “years of mismanagement by the previous administration,” as well as pandemic-related disruptions to fuel markets, in justifying its action.
“We need to maintain the requirements that we have,” said Fischer, who brought up Biden’s campaigning as an ethanol-supporting friend of midwestern farmers. “Hopefully, he will take another look at that and go back to some of his campaign promises.”
Chris Bliley, senior vice president of regulatory affairs for biofuel industry firm Growth Energy — which unsuccessfully petitioned the Supreme Court to review the D.C. Circuit’s E15 decision — said higher RFS volumes and more biofuel in general is in the Biden administration’s interest.
“Setting the volumes backwards and really not driving biofuel blending is not how this should be done,” Bliley told Jeremy. “A strong RFS program moving forward is very advantageous and helps the administration meet some of its climate goals.”
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BREAKING – IPCC SAYS ‘NOW OR NEVER’ FOR LIMITING GLOBAL WARMING: Scientists from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, warned in a new report today that the world must act now to make “rapid, deep and immediate” cuts to CO2 emissions if it hopes to stave off global warming,
“Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5°C is beyond reach,” IPCC Working Group III co-chair Jim Skea said in a statement accompanying the report, which can be read in full here.
DEMOCRATS WELCOME NEW FUEL STANDARDS: Democratic lawmakers welcomed the new fuel standards requiring vehicle manufacturers to achieve fleetwide fuel efficiency averaging 49 miles per gallon beginning in model year 2026, along with other incremental targets.
House Energy and Commerce Chair Frank Pallone called the rules “an enormous win for consumers, the environment, and U.S. energy independence,” each of which got a nod in Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s announcement of the rules on Friday.
Democratic Sen. Ed Markey said the rule “allows cars to go even further on a gallon of gas while protecting communities from harmful air pollution and creating jobs in the auto industry,” although the statement included a caveat that it “does not go far enough to make up for Trump’s rollbacks.”
MACRON CITES BUCHA ‘WAR CRIMES’ IN CALL TO STOP RUSSIAN OIL: Emmanuel Macron said Europe should advance new sanctions on Russia and stop bringing in its oil and coal in response to what he called “very clear indications of war crimes” in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, the Financial Times reported.
“We can’t accept this,” Macron said in a French radio interview. He said on oil and coal, “We must be able to move forward” and endorsed sanctions after the discovery of more than 400 dead civilians.
The attacks on Bucha drew condemnation from leaders across the West, and EU leaders plan to meet Wednesday to consider additional sanctions.
The developments add new pressure on Western leaders to decouple themselves from Russian energy supplies.
MANCHIN CHALLENGES SEC CLIMATE RULE: Sen. Joe Manchin is challenging the decision by the SEC’s Democratic majority to propose rules requiring climate-related risk disclosures.
Manchin wrote Chairman Gary Gensler today saying he worries the proposal would burden companies and that it sends “a signal of opposition to the all-of-the-above energy policy that is critical to our country right now.”
He said he was most concerned about “what appears to be the targeting of our nation’s fossil fuel companies.”
Manchin’s stance adds to his record of opposition to Biden administration efforts to overhaul financial regulations to take account of climate change. Manchin opposed the nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin, Biden’s nominee for vice chair of supervision at the Fed, because of her positions on climate change and regulatory policy.
UK TO ANNOUNCE PLANS TO BUILD SEVEN NEW NUCLEAR SITES: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to announce up to seven new nuclear power stations to be built by 2050 as part of the UK’s plan to reduce its dependence on Russian oil supplies and build out its domestic capabilities.
British Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng told The Sunday Telegraph in an interview last week that the UK is planning as many as six or seven nuclear plants to be built by 2050, with work beginning in the next few years.
“There is a realisation across government that we could do more on nuclear,” Kwarteng told the Telegraph. “With energy, you’re thinking maybe 30, even 40 years [ahead],” he added. “If we fast forward to 2050, there is a world where we have six or seven sites in the UK.”
The news comes just days before Britain is slated to unveil its broader energy security strategy on Thursday, which Reuters reports is expected to commit to supporting the construction of “at least two new large-scale nuclear plants by 2030,” in addition to small modular reactors.
Johnson is also weighing whether to lift Britain’s 2019 moratorium on fracking. Last month, Johnson asked ministers to reevaluate whether shale gas could help bolster the UK’s energy needs after it announced it would ban all Russian oil imports by the end of 2022. But the move that has reportedly sparked opposition from fellow Tories, including Kwarteng.
BARRASSO SAYS BIDEN NEEDS TO BACK MINING: In a new Washington Examiner op-ed, Sen. John Barrasso argued that Biden’s recent energy decisions have made it “even more difficult for U.S. companies to mine key minerals,” making his climate goals “even more unrealistic than they are already.”
“We have to stop kidding ourselves that deeply cutting emissions is easy or cheap,” wrote Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “It’s neither. President Joe Biden’s opposition to the expanded use of domestic minerals will make it even harder and more expensive. That means more inflation. …America became energy-independent in 2019 for the first time in seven decades. But Biden is making the U.S. energy-dependent again,” he added.
“If we are serious about increasing the use of renewables and electric vehicles, we need a lot more mining here in America.” Read his full op-ed here.
A LOOK BACK AT MARCH’S GAS MARKETS: Demand for U.S. natural gas grew 4% from March 2021 to March 2022 as customers in Europe especially are increasingly seeking out the product, according to a end-month report by the American Gas Association.
Total demand in last month averaged 3.9 billion cubic feet per day higher than March 2021. The average volume of gas being fed to the busy domestic LNG facilities was also strong at 12.8 Bcf per day. Feedgas hit 13.7 Bcf on March 19, per the report.
Where prices are: While European gas prices were all over the map in March, they have consistently remained between seven and 10 times prices in the U.S., and occasionally more.
The Rundown
E&ENews ‘Ineligible’ flood projects get millions in earmarks
AP ‘Green steel’ heating up in Sweden’s frozen north
Bloomberg World’s scramble for energy drives Australian exports to record
Axios Massive ship called Ever Forward is stuck in Chesapeake Bay
Calendar
TUESDAY | APRIL 5
10:00 a.m. 1324 Longworth The House Natural Resources Subcommittee will hold a hearing examining efforts to use bipartisan infrastructure funds for federal wildfire management and ecosystem restoration.
2:00 p.m. 310 Cannon The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Innovation holds a hearing on Russian cyber threats to U.S. critical infrastructure.
WEDNESDAY | APRIL 6
10:00 a.m. Dingell 2123 The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing with six oil company executives titled, “Gouged at the Gas Station: Big Oil and America’s Pain at the Pump.”
