Daily on Energy: House GOP meets to discuss climate agenda ‘counter-narrative’

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has identified climate change as a vulnerability for members of his caucus competing in swing, suburban districts, especially in terms of appealing to younger voters.

He gave a directive to committees of jurisdiction to identify climate-related policies his members can support.

Meetings begin: Last Wednesday, Nov. 20, McCarthy held a meeting focused on climate change that he organized with 25 or so members representing different constituencies of the conference, the first of several planned meetings on the topic, GOP sources familiar with the meeting told Josh.

The sources requested anonymity to speak freely about ongoing deliberations.

McCarthy had planned a larger meeting for the entire conference earlier this month, but it was canceled due to the ongoing impeachment proceedings.

At the smaller meeting last week, leaders of relevant committees delivered presentations on Republican talking points that will help the conference message a package bills the GOP is aiming to introduce in the coming months — some new, some already introduced.

Among those presenting at the meeting were Garret Graves of Louisiana, the top Republican on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Select Climate Crisis Committee, and Greg Walden of Oregon, the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

“It’s really just setting the foundation to counter people who say, ‘Republicans are bad on climate,’ a GOP House source told Josh. “Well, here’s the counter-narrative.”

Graves is spearheading a report produced by GOP members on the select committee, due next year, that will inform the broader conference political strategy.

McCarthy’s plan: McCarthy told the Washington Examiner last month that House Republicans are planning to package a series of bills addressing climate change that follow conservative, free-market principles while rejecting Democratic proposals.

“Let’s have that debate instead of everybody saying we’re just deniers,” said McCarthy, a close ally to Trump who represents a rural district in California, among the states most aggressive in fighting climate change.

Congressional Republicans generally have focused their messaging on promoting private-sector innovation, investing in R&D on emissions-reducing technologies such as carbon capture, and advanced nuclear energy. There are a number of bipartisan bills addressing those issues pending in both chambers of Congress. McCarthy is also working on a bill with Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, a licensed forester, focused on planting trees to absorb C02.

However, McCarthy and Republicans are unlikely to back more comprehensive action like carbon pricing, leading to criticisms from Democrats that the GOP is looking to cover itself without doing anything significant.

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NO REASON TO RUSH THINGS: The Trump administration won’t get its wish of a speedy resolution for challenges to its Clean Power Plan replacement.

The D.C. Circuit denied in an order Friday the Environmental Protection Agency’s request to expedite the lawsuit with a goal of hearing oral arguments by April 2020 — less than a year after the agency issued its final rule, a timeline that would have been quite the sprint in the legal world.

The federal appeals court also denied, though, environmentalists’ request to pause the lawsuit, until the EPA completes work on related changes to an air pollution permitting program that the had said are critical to utilities being able to comply with its new rule. The EPA’s replacement to the Obama-era climate rule sets much narrower standards for power plants, based solely on what individual facilities are able to accomplish through improving efficiency.

Why the timing matters: Politics. Simple as that.

The Trump administration wants a D.C. Circuit ruling on its regulation before the 2020 election, to cement its approach and make it harder for any potential new administration to reverse course.

And if the court ultimately agrees with the Trump EPA’s narrower interpretation of the law, it could tie the hands of any future administration, barring them from crafting any program similar to the Clean Power Plan. That could be a significant roadblock for any of the Democrats running for the White House, nearly all of whom have said they’d reinstate the Clean Power Plan and go further.

‘NO LEGAL BASIS’ TO SCRAP CALIFORNIA’S AUTHORITY: Environmental groups are again joining the fray to defend California’s ability to set its own greenhouse gas limits for cars.

Nearly a dozen environmental groups — including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Sierra Club — sued the EPA Friday over its withdrawal of the Golden State’s waiver under the Clean Air Act, which allows the state to set stricter clean car standards than the federal government.

Their lawsuit follows similar challenges made by California and 23 other states, a California local air quality district, and a coalition of electric car makers, utilities, and other advanced vehicle companies. All of those challenges will likely be combined into a massive lawsuit over California’s vehicle authority, a linchpin of the state’s ambitious climate program.

The survival of California’s authority also matters for other states: Fourteen states already have adopted the Golden State’s standards, and more are waiting on the sidelines.

“Nevada will stand with other leading states and begin moving forward stronger vehicle standards,” Governor Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, said Friday at a signing ceremony for his new climate change executive order.

That order directs state agencies to develop a climate plan by the end of 2020, and while it doesn’t specifically call for Nevada to adopt California’s standards, Sisolak said the state must do much more to address the transportation sector, the state’s highest emitter.

The governors of Minnesota and New Mexico have also said their states plan to adopt the California limits.

SUPREME COURT WILL LET CLIMATE SCIENCE DEFAMATION CASE MOVE FORWARD: The Supreme Court denied Monday a petition from the free-market think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute and National Review to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought against the groups by world-renowned climate scientist Michael Mann.

The Supreme Court’s denial means Mann’s defamation lawsuit will continue to move forward in D.C. district court. CEI and National Review have been fighting for years to stop the case.

The lawsuit stems back to a pair of 2012 columns in which CEI accused Mann, the director of Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Center, of manipulating scientific data for his famous “hockey stick graph” that shows spiking global temperature increases in the last century.

Justice Samuel Alito dissented, arguing that the case addresses a critical freedom of speech and freedom of press issue: “the protection afforded to journalists and others who use harsh language in criticizing opposing advocacy on one of the most important public issues of the day.”

RENEWABLES AREN’T GROWING FAST ENOUGH: That’s in part because clean energy investments in China and several other key developing nations slowed in 2018, BloombergNEF finds in new research released Monday.

At the same time, coal-fired generation spiked in the 104 developing economies surveyed, increasing 7% between 2017 and 2018, according to BloombergNEF’s Climatescope survey.

Why this matters: The countries BloombergNEF focuses on are the ones where demand for power is poised to grow the most in the coming years. Those countries will also generate the bulk of power sector carbon emissions in the next three decades because they won’t be able to decarbonize as quickly as developed nations, BloombergNEF says.

The survey is “a stark reminder of the work ahead” if the world is to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the goal of the Paris climate agreement, BloombergNEF writes in its key findings.

BLOOMBERG GETS IN: In announcing his entrance in to the Democratic primary, billionaire former New York City mayor and climate change activist Michael Bloomberg touted his backing for perhaps the most effective campaign to cut carbon pollution in the U.S.: More than $100 million for Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” project.

That campaign has helped retire more than half of the nation’s coal plants, 299 out of 530, according to Beyond Coal’s latest count. Bloomberg earlier this year gave $500 million to an expanded campaign called “Beyond Carbon” aiming to stop the construction of new gas plants in favor of renewables.

Resume might not matter: Bloomberg will still have to overcome the skepticism of environmentalists and young progressives who aren’t necessarily enthusiastic about a late-entrant campaign from a white male billionaire. Bloomberg will also compete with an established Democratic primary field that is already emphasizing climate change, with most candidates releasing detailed plans to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 at the latest. Bloomberg’s campaign website contains little detail on his planned agenda, only saying he plans to “accelerate the U.S. toward a clean energy economy.”

The Rundown

Associated Press Pope in Japan voices concern over nuke power, meets victims

Wall Street Journal Utilities identified in cyberattacks identified

Los Angeles Times Climate action threatens SoCalGas. It’s using customer money to fight back, critics say

Washington Post Students swarm field at Harvard-Yale football game, chant ‘OK boomer’ in climate change protest

CNBC Clean energy technology was thought to be uninvestable. One fund thinks otherwise

New York Times 82 days underwater: The tide is high, but they’re holding on

Washington Post The weather is big business, and it’s veering toward a collision with the federal government

Calendar

MONDAY | NOVEMBER 25

House and Senate are out for Thanksgiving recess