Daily on Energy: We could have a huge permafrost problem

WE COULD HAVE A HUGE PERMAFROST PROBLEM: A new report — published Monday in the scientific journal Nature — finds melting permafrost in the Arctic could actually be putting more carbon into the air than it is storing as a carbon sink. And the accelerated melting of that frozen ground in the winter could lead to an additional 27 billion tons of carbon emissions through 2100, equal to the emissions from 260 million cars each year.

What’s more is those numbers aren’t yet accounted for in global carbon budgets at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and elsewhere.

“There are a lot of surprises that are happening in the Arctic,” Dr. Sue Natali, a researcher with the Woods Hole Research Center and an author on the study, told lawmakers in an on-the-record briefing Monday with fellow researcher Jennifer Watts.

“I was working in the Arctic this summer and it was 90 degrees Fahrenheit,” Natali added. “The ground was cracking, literally places where you foot was falling through the ground.”

The briefing, hosted by Democratic climate and environment subcommittee chairman Paul Tonko and select climate committee chairwoman Kathy Castor, allowed a rare glimpse into interactions between policymakers and researchers that typically happen behind closed doors.

“The more we learn, the more obvious it becomes that we must make dramatic greenhouse gas reductions as soon as possible,” Tonko said, introducing the briefing.

But translating the science into policy is difficult: Scientists and policymakers in many ways speak different languages about ambition, uncertainty, and political will. There’s not much Natali and Watts could tell Tonko and Castor beyond U.S. climate policy needs to be more aggressive.

“I think we need to ramp up ambition and there’s really no other way,” Natali said. “Sooner is better. Today’s better than tomorrow. Ten years ago would have been even better.”

Tonko said the new science helps make the case for House Energy and Commerce Democrats’ push toward a 2050 goal of a 100% net-zero carbon economy. The committee Democrats announced that vision in June.

The researchers, though, also urged policymakers to fund more long-term climate research. That’s the only way to get rid of scientific uncertainty, Watts said.

“Data is messy, but the more observations that agree, the more model simulations that agree, that gives us more confidence in what we are seeing,” she added.

Reducing scientific uncertainty also means policymakers would be better prepared and less money would be spent trying to avoid the worst effects of climate change, Natali 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.

TRUMP’S SYRIA STRATEGY IS ABOUT THE OIL: With Turkey’s five-day ceasefire in Syria due to expire at 3 p.m. today, the Pentagon is busy working on options to continue the fight against ISIS while preventing terrorists or the Bashar Assad regime from regaining control over oil resources.

The Washington Examiner’s Jamie McIntyre reports the Trump administration’s short-term plan is to leave a small number of U.S. troops, roughly 200, to help secure oil fields in the north, while repositioning the bulk of American forces across the border in Iraq, where they would at least for a while continue to help the Syrian Kurds battle ISIS. During the four-year war against the ISIS caliphate, the U.S.-led coalition routinely bombed oil facilities to cut off ISIS’ main source of funding.

“The focus is to deny access, specifically revenue, to ISIS and any other groups that may want to seek that revenue to enable their own malign activities,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said at a news conference in Kabul on Monday.

OUT GOES THE OIL: The U.S. exports crude oil to more destinations than it imports from, the Energy Information Administration reported Tuesday.

In 2009, the U.S. imported oil from as many as 37 countries, territories, and regions per month, compared to 27 in the first seven months of 2019.

During those seven months of this year, the U.S. exported crude oil to as many as 31 destinations per month.

The rise in export destinations comes after Congress lifted the ban on crude oil exports in 2015.

HE’LL BE GONE AFTER NOVEMBER: Energy Secretary Rick Perry will officially leave his post on Dec. 1, he said Monday, after submitting his resignation last week.

“I will be gone after the first of December,” Perry said during his appearance in Brussels at the U.S.-E.U. High Level Forum on small modular nuclear reactors “That will be my last day as secretary of energy.”

Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Lisa Murkowski said Monday she intends to proceed quickly to hold a hearing on Trump’s nominee to succeed Perry, deputy secretary Dan Brouillette.

“Dan is a great choice to be Secretary of Energy and I strongly support his nomination,” Murkowski said. “Once we receive his nomination and paperwork, we will proceed with a hearing so that we can confirm him as soon as possible.”

BUYING CLEAN TO SAVE CLIMATE: Labor and green groups are singing the praises of federal procurement policy, in hopes it catches fire in broader climate policy discussions.

President Obama waded into procurement policy with a couple executive orders, but he didn’t nearly tap its full potential. Some Democratice presidential candidates — New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and Montana Governor Steve Bullock — have touted procurement as pieces of their climate policy plans, but it hasn’t grabbed the full attention of the frontrunners.

That’s probably because procurement isn’t the most exciting policy tool: But it could have a huge impact because the federal government is one of the country’s largest purchasing powers. And it could help cut emissions from hard-to-reach sectors like industrial manufacturing.

“It’s shortsighted for us to focus entirely on zero-emissions technologies like electric vehicles, renewables, and nuclear if we don’t also get to a point where materials, like steel and cement, are net-zero carbon,” Josh Freed, senior vice president of Third Way’s climate and energy program, told Abby in a statement.

Third Way and the BlueGreen Alliance are hosting an all-day event Wednesday on “buy clean” policies. Industrial state Democrat Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois is slated to speak.

SENATORS GIVE EPA THE 411 ON 401: Republican and Democratic senators are fighting in the Environmental Protection Agency’s comment docket, as the agency weighs changes to Clean Water Act section 401 to rein in states’ authority to block infrastructure projects.

A group of Democratic senators say the EPA’s proposed changes are not only unnecessary, but also an assault on states’ rights. “We are concerned that EPA is responding to pressure from the fossil fuel industry,” Senators Tom Carper of Delaware, Booker, and Duckworth wrote in a letter Monday.

They might be right that EPA is listening to industry: Fossil fuel companies have long complained about blue states’ use of section 401 to block infrastructure — including recently a proposed coal export facility in Washington and a natural gas pipeline in New York.

A cohort of Republican senators — led by environment committee Chairman and Wyoming Senator John Barrasso — are backing up industry’s gripes. Blue states’ actions “hurt other states’ sovereign interests,” the senators wrote in a letter Monday. “The economic harm caused by crippling energy projects is real.”

Wheeler versus Cuomo: EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler slammed Andrew Cuomo Tuesday for using section 401 authority to hold up natural gas pipelines. The New York governor’s decision to veto pipelines is “the worst environmental decision by an elected official in the past year,” the EPA administrator said during remarks to the Detroit Economic Club.

BUMP IN THE ROAD FOR OPPONENTS OF OHIO COAL AND NUKE BAILOUT: The Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, a group looking to overturn Ohio’s divisive legislation subsidizing uneconomic coal and nuclear plants, announced it missed the Monday deadline for submitting the signatures necessary to advance a proposed 2020 referendum challenging the law, HB 6.

However, the group is looking for a federal judge to issue a favorable ruling Tuesday that would grant a 38-day extension for opponents to generate enough signatures to make the November 2020 ballot.

Opponents want the judge to grant an exception to a 1931 law giving the group 90 days from the law’s enactment to gather signatures.

Ohio’s law — approved by the state’s Republican-led legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine — is unprecedented, pushed by politically influential bankrupt utility FirstEnergy Solutions.

Its core purpose is to subsidize uneconomic nuclear and coal plants, but in addition to doing that, it takes away money from renewable electricity and efficiency mandates. It shrinks Ohio’s renewable portfolio standard goal of 12.5% to 8.5%, and cancels the program after 2026.

MAYORS GET IN ON SOLAR TAX SUBSIDY FIGHT: More than 200 of them sent a letter to Congress Tuesday calling for lawmakers to pass legislation extending the solar investment tax credit for five years.

“Solar energy is a low-cost solution that saves our residents money on their electricity bills and provides well-paying job opportunities in our communities, all while helping keep our environment clean,” U.S. mayors — 231 of them — said in a letter.

The cities represented span from Baltimore to Berkeley, Asheville, and Springfield, Illinois. More than 60 of the mayors are working in districts that have a Republican member of Congress, says the Solar Energy Industries Association, which organized the letter.

The solar investment tax credit is scheduled to start phasing down at the end of this year.

30 BY 30 PROJECT TO ‘SAVE NATURE’: Democratic Senators Tom Udall of New Mexico and Michael Bennet of Colorado introduced a resolution Tuesday recommending the federal government set a national goal of conserving at least 30% of U.S. lands and oceans by 2030.

“The ‘Thirty by Thirty Resolution to Save Nature’ recognizes that nature — like climate change — is reaching a tipping point,” Udall said. “Many ecosystems and wildlife species are nearing the point of no return.”

The non-binding “sense of the Senate” resolution would seek to achieve that conservation goal by, among other things, increasing public incentives for private landowners to voluntarily conserve their land, especially areas that have the potential to sequester carbon emissions.

Bennet, a presidential candidate, has previously established a national commitment to conserve 30% of America’s lands and oceans by 2030 as part of his agenda.

CALIFORNIA BLACKOUT SPOTLIGHTS CLIMATE QUESTIONS: Shutting the power down to prevent wildfires could become a norm for California utilities — and it’s raising some questions about whether the companies and the government can balance climate change goals with keeping the lights on.

Pacific Gas & Electric shuttered the power for nearly 800,000 customers over four days earlier this month. The blackout is fueling debate about whether California policymakers are leaving out certain energy sources, including natural gas and clean distributed energy, from their solution set.

Read more in Abby’s story in this week’s Washington Examiner magazine.

The Rundown

Wall Street Journal San Jose to propose turning PG&E into giant customer-owned utility

Politico The new science fossil fuel companies fear

Washington Post As waters rise, so do concerns for sports teams along coast

Reuters RBC says Trudeau minority not good for oil pipeline businesses

Bloomberg California prepares for a huge solar boom

Calendar

TUESDAY | OCTOBER 22

2 p.m. 1302 Longworth. The House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis will hold a hearing on “Solving the Climate Crisis: Natural Solutions to Cutting Pollution and Building Resilience”

WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 23

10 am, 2154 Rayburn: The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee will hold a hearing on “Examining the Oil Industry’s Efforts to Suppress the Truth about Climate Change.”

10 am, 2167 Rayburn: The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee will hold a hearing on “The Pebble Mine Project: Process and Potential Impacts.”

10:30 am, 2322 Rayburn: The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee will hold a hearing on “Building a 100 Percent Clean Economy: Solutions for Planes, Trains and Everything Beyond Automobiles.

THURSDAY | OCTOBER 24

9:00 am, American Gas Association, 400 N Capitol St. NW, Suite 450: The American Gas Association will present its annual winter outlook on natural gas supply, demand, storage, temperatures, weather events, pipeline capacity, and potential impacts on customer bills.