Daily on Energy: Democrats face tough task in filling out climate agenda

However that is looking like a tough task, despite Democratic unity around the idea that the federal government must ramp up efforts to combat emissions to reach net-zero by 2050.

House Democrats said Thursday they plan to introduce legislation soon that would seek to codify the 100% clean economy by 2050 target into law.

The measure would establish a federal climate target of ensuring that the economy has net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and “all agencies of the federal government will have to come up with their best standards and work to respond to that goal,” Paul Tonko of New York told reporters Thursday.

But the decision to start with a simple goal, instead of putting more meat on the bones for the “full universe of economy-wide” emissions cuts, as Tonko said Democrats eventually intend to do, shows the party is struggling to agree on details.

Democrats host idea forum: The House Select Climate Crisis Committee heard Thursday from members across the conference on ideas for the committee’s policy recommendations due to be delivered to the conference in the spring of 2020.

“We need a broad portfolio of solutions,” Tonko told the select committee. “No one policy will decarbonize the entire economy on its own.”

Indeed, proposals from members were all over the place, showing the complexity of addressing climate change, with activists demanding solutions that also work toward other progressive goals, such as boosting investments in health care, housing, and infrastructure.

Lauren Underwood of Illinois touted her “Climate and Health Protection Act,” which would increase funding for the Centers for Disease Control’s Climate and Health Program, helping state and local governments prepare for the public health consequences of climate change.

Betty McCollum of Minnesota focused on the threat of climate change to the military.

McCollum, chair of the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, recommended that every Appropriations bill in Congress include a line item on what agencies and departments need to do to combat climate change, demonstrating the expansive reach of the issue.

Other members focused on resilience, or adapting to climate change. Cheri Bustos of Illinois wants to make sure rural America has a seat at “the table of the climate debate, a conversation that we’ve too often been left out of,” pushing for incentives for farmers to sequester carbon in soils, vegetation, and forests. Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts emphasized the need to combat “green gentrification,” while fellow progressive Nanette Barragan of California wants to confront “environmental racism.” Centrist Ted Deutch of Florida — co-chair of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus — plugged his bipartisan carbon tax and dividend proposal. Carbon pricing has divided the Democratic presidential field, with candidates split over how much to emphasize it, and how to spend the revenue.

The Green New Deal elephant in the room: As the climate select committee took testimony, two of the biggest progressive stars, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were outside the Capitol hyping their new “Green New Deal for Public Housing” legislation, which they consider the first attempt at filling out their sweeping GND platform.

“We are going to be making massive cuts in carbon by retrofitting and rebuilding public housing in this country,” he said, responding to chants of activists surrounding him of “fight fight fight, housing is a human right.”

Ocasio-Cortez said their bill also seeks to end food deserts, provide groceries on site for public housing residents, and offer “good paying childcare services.”

“We are facing a global crisis…We must listen to the scientists, and the Green New Deal is the only program out there that does that,” Sanders 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.

MIXED SIGNALS FOR US OIL: The U.S. produced an all-time high 12.6 million barrels per day of oil in October, the most of anywhere in the world.

American Petroleum Institute’s Monthly Statistical Report, out Thursday, also found record demand for U.S. crude oil and liquid petroleum products (gasoline, diesel, etc.) for the month of October, at 21.2 million barrels per day.

This good news for the oil and gas industry comes after the Energy Information Administration projected this week, using preliminary data, that the U.S. exported 140,000 barrels per day more total crude oil and petroleum products in September than it imported.

If confirmed, “it would be the first time the United States exported more petroleum than it imported since EIA records began in 1949,” EIA said.

Growth is slowing, however: The oil cartel OPEC cut its forecast for U.S. oil production growth as part of its monthly oil market report released Thursday.

The group lowered its non-OPEC production growth estimate by 34,000 barrels per day to 2.17 million barrels per day. That’s “mainly due to the U.S., which was revised down by 33,000 barrels a day to now show growth of 1.5 million barrels a day for the year.”

OPEC says the slowing growth in U.S. output could figure into the group’s considerations on whether to extend production cuts as part of its pact with Russia and other allies to increase prices. OPEC is meeting next month to discuss the agreement.

EUROPEAN INVESTMENT BANK GOES ALL IN ON CLIMATE FINANCE: That means no more money to fossil fuel projects after 2021. And yes, that includes natural gas.

The board of the European Investment Bank, the lending arm of the European Union, adopted the new policy Thursday. Werner Hoyer, the bank’s president, called the changes a “quantum leap” forward and the “most ambitious climate investment strategy of any public financial institution anywhere.”

In addition to ending fossil fuel financing, the bank also plans to dramatically increase its climate-related investments, setting a target of €1 trillion in climate and environmental sustainability investments between 2021 and 2030.

EPA FIRES BACK AT SUBPOENA THREATS: The Environmental Protection Agency says it’s been plenty responsive to requests for information from the House Science Committee and threats of subpoenas aren’t warranted.

The EPA says it has been “entirely transparent” in producing documents and answering Democrats’ questions about its reorganization of its Integrated Risk Information System, which studies the risks chemicals pose to human health. “To accuse the Agency of otherwise is completely false,” the EPA wrote in documents sent Thursday to House Science Committee Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas.

Johnson and other Democrats have raised particular concerns about the EPA’s decision to remove the IRIS program’s role in assessing the dangers of formaldehyde, opting instead for the agency’s chemical office to conduct the review under the toxics law.

What EPA is offering to ward off subpoenas: A briefing with agency staff, including one of the EPA’s top science officials and a former Koch Industries official David Dunlap, who is at the center of the controversy. The EPA also says House Science Committee staff can confidentially view a document Johnson is seeking that the agency has said is deliberative and doesn’t want to release publicly.

ENERGY DEPARTMENT FLEXES MUSCLE FOR CARBON CAPTURE: The department announced Thursday a new round of funding for carbon capture and storage projects, this time focused on technologies to help baseload power plants.

The Energy Department’s innovation hub — the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E — is offering up to $43 million for its FLExible Carbon Capture and Storage program. That program focuses on breaking down barriers to power-sector carbon capture in environments with increasing wind and solar power, the department says.

“Flexible CCS technology has the potential to achieve unprecedented carbon capture that will revolutionize the market,” said Dan Brouillette, deputy energy secretary and President Trump’s nominee to lead the department. “The FLECCS program will quickly advance our carbon capture technology to bring us closer to flexible, low-cost, net-zero carbon electricity systems.”

NUCLEAR INDUSTRY TAKES STAKE IN EX-IM FIGHT: National security experts warned House and Senate leaders Thursday that failing to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank puts the U.S. at a disadvantage relative to China and Russia in its ability to export nuclear technology.

The House on Friday is expected to pass legislation extending the operations of Ex-Im, which guarantees loans for U.S. goods sold abroad, for the next decade. However, Senate Republicans are threatening to oppose the bill as written, and prefer to see Ex-Im reauthorized as part of a must-pass spending agreement.

In a letter to House and Senate leadership, 38 national security experts, organized as the “American Security Project,” said the U.S.’ lack of consensus around the Ex-Im Bank, which has been opposed by conservatives, has allowed Russia to exploit “favorable export financing” to become today’s dominant nuclear supplier. China is following the same model, the experts warned.

“U.S. companies may offer the best products in the world but only with a reliable and competitive Ex-Im Bank can they be competitive in overseas markets of strategic importance,” says the letter, which was signed by former members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission among others.

MEMO TO TWITTER…CLIMATE IS NOT POLITICAL: That’s the argument of 21 environmental groups that are calling on the social media platform to exempt climate change from its ban of political ads ahead of the 2020 election.

Twitter is expected to announce rules governing its new policy Friday.

“As advocates, we must have the ability to disseminate the urgency of our work and mission to the public and, when necessary, hold elected officials accountable for their failure to act,” wrote the groups, including the League of Conservation Voters and the Union of Concerned Scientists, in a letter Thursday to Twitter’s leadership. “By designating climate change a ‘political’ issue, Twitter will be legitimizing the one-sided and extremist view that climate change is rooted in politics instead of scientific consensus.”

COLLINS’ CLIMATE CRED NO LONGER IMPRESSES GREENS: League of Conservation Voters is looking for a change in Maine.

The green group announced its endorsement Thursday for Sara Gideon, the Democrat challenging Republican Susan Collins in 2020 for Senate. Gideon currently serves as speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, and League of Conservation Voters lauded her as a long-time “champion for environmental issues.”

But it wasn’t that long ago that the green group was singing similar praises of Collins: League of Conservation Voters endorsed Collins for her last re-election race in 2014.

“Senator Susan Collins is committed to finding bipartisan solutions that will safeguard our environment and combat climate change while promoting clean energy, which will create good paying jobs and reduce our reliance on dirty fossil fuels,” Gene Karpinski, the group’s president, said at the time.

Collins is still hopping on bipartisan bills to address climate change. On Thursday, she joined a handful of Democratic colleagues to introduce legislation supporting the expansion of regional climate programs like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the nine-state carbon trading program Maine is a part of.

League of Conservation’s switch, though, is proof that many green groups are looking for more than just bucking Trump’s environmental policies and small potatoes climate legislation. Green groups’ most important ask is a bold and broad national climate policy, which they may only have a chance of getting if they flip the Senate.

The Rundown

New York Times Sanders’s climate ambitions thrill supporters. Experts aren’t impressed.

Bloomberg Venezuela is secretly exporting millions of barrels of oil

Calendar

TUESDAY | NOVEMBER 19

10 a.m. 366 Dirksen. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a business meeting is to consider pending nominations and legislation.

10 a.m. 406 Dirksen. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a legislative hearing on “S. 1087, the Water Quality Certification Improvement Act of 2019, and Other Potential Reforms to Improve Implementation of Section 401 of the Clean Water Act: State Perspectives.”

WEDNESDAY | NOVEMBER 20

10 a.m. 2123 Rayburn. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change will hold a hearing entitled “Building a 100 Percent Clean Economy: The Challenges Facing Frontline Communities.”

10 a.m. 2362-B Rayburn. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development holds a hearing on the Energy Department’s role in addressing climate change.