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TRUMP TO GET AN EARFUL FROM BIG OIL: President Trump is scheduled to sit down Thursday afternoon with a group of large oil companies to discuss a “laundry list” of issues.

The American Petroleum Institute’s executive board has made meeting with Trump a priority given a number of pressing issues including steel tariffs, NAFTA negotiations, offshore drilling and the ethanol mandate.

• Laundry list: Sources tracking the meeting tell John the “laundry list” likely will include: offshore drilling, Renewable Fuel Standard reform, regulatory reform, pipeline construction, natural gas drilling and methane rules, North American Free Trade Agreement renegotiation, and Trump’s inclination to impose tariffs. API opposes the steel and aluminum tariffs Trump imposed on those imports last week, saying it would disrupt energy infrastructure development.

• Gerard not pleased with tariffs: API President and CEO Jack Gerard recently told John in an interview on the sidelines of CERAWeek in Houston this month that he was hopeful he could meet with the White House to persuade the president against imposing a broad tariff. The tariff decision does carve out a process for industries to petition for exemptions on steel products.

Still, Gerard said he was disappointed that Trump moved forward with the steel tariffs.

• Pence joins meeting: Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to attend the meeting, too. Others tracking the meeting tell John that Pence’s presence suggests the ethanol mandate will come up. He was supposed to meet with large ethanol producers on Monday, but the meeting was scrapped because of a scheduling conflict. Pence’s home state of Indiana is a big corn producer and has a major stake in the Renewable Fuel Standard.

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COAL SUBSIDIES INTRODUCED IN THE HOUSE: A bill introduced in the House Wednesday would give coal power plants subsidies for providing resilience to the grid.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-Ind., called the Electricity Reliability and Fuel Security Act. The credits would give the plants a 30 percent credit to offset maintenance and operational costs or provide a $13-per-kilowatt hour credit.

• Moving ahead: Paul Bailey, the head of the pro-coal American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, told John that his group is talking to the Senate about a companion bill.

He is also talking to the federally overseen grid operators to discuss how such a credit would work in the electricity markets they oversee.

• Not a Perry plan reboot: The bill shouldn’t be seen as a new version of the failed grid resilience plan put forth by Energy Secretary Rick Perry at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

That plan would have provided market incentives, awarding coal and nuclear plants for keeping the supply of fuel high at times when the grid is stressed.

“It’s really not an outgrowth of the Perry plan,” Bailey said. He emphasized that the credits would be phased out over five years. He also emphasized that the coal industry wants the credits to provide parity with federal incentives provided to wind and solar.

Bailey said the industry does not want the renewable subsidies gutted. He said it’s too politically difficult to do that, so parity is only way forward.  

• Looks a lot like a failed Ohio proposal: The Bucshon bill does look like s a proposal put forth by American Electric Power in Ohio a few years back to help offset the cost of operating and maintaining the plants, while the plants bid into the lucrative FERC-overseen capacity markets.

That option, called a “non-rebuttable adder,” stoked the ire of energy consumer groups and businesses, saying it would drive up energy costs. It was rejected by Ohio regulators.   

KAPTUR SAYS SOLAR FIRMS HACKED ‘HUNDREDS OF TIMES’ PER MONTH IN PRODDING PERRY: Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee’s energy panel, said Thursday that top solar companies in her state are constantly being hacked by China to the tune of “hundreds of times a month.”

That’s because the research and development race in renewables is so intense. She used that detail to press Energy Secretary Rick Perry over his fiscal 2019 budget proposal’s cuts to renewable energy.

“I have a plant to alter your budget,” she said. She is convinced the budget will put the U.S. in an “inferior position” when it comes to renewables.

• DOE committed to solar, but …: Perry said the department remains committed to renewable energy, but sees private-sector advancements gaining steam without federal help. He said the Energy Department is looking to balance those private gains with federal spending.

• Not wise: Kaptur suggested that the idea of placing the agency’s foot on the brake, while also on the accelerator, is not wise, and could result in a leg up for U.S. competitors.

• Natural gas exports: Kaptur, on the flip side, praised Perry for making natural gas exports a priority. She supports exporting energy from Ohio, which is ramping up shale natural gas production.

ZINKE INSISTS ‘WE HAVE NOT IMPORTED ONE ELEPHANT’: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke insisted Thursday morning that his department has not authorized importing any elephant trophies since the Fish and Wildlife Service announced it will consider imports of elephant trophies from African countries on a case-by-case basis.

“We have not imported one elephant,” Zinke said in testimony about the Interior Department’s budget before the House Natural Resources Committee.

• ‘Case by case’: In a memo issued this month, Fish and Wildlife said it will withdraw its 2017 Endangered Species Act findings for trophies of hunted African elephants from Zimbabwe and Zambia, “effective immediately.”

The agency will instead “grant or deny permits to import a sport-hunted trophy on a case-by-case basis.”

• Trump gets involved: The Fish and Wildlife Service in November moved to overturn an Obama-era ban on elephant trophy imports from Zimbabwe, before Trump intervened.

After a public outcry, Trump said he had put the policy on hold pending further study.

• Court forces change: Zinke said the policy hasn’t changed, but Interior had to begin considering elephant imports on a case-by-case basis because of a prior court ruling.

In December, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found government officials implemented the Obama-era ban without following regulatory procedures, including a failure to open the decision to public comment.

“The court mandated we change the process, not the policy,” Zinke said Thursday. “We are 100 percent on board with the president’s policy.”

ZINKE DOUBLES DOWN ON FLORIDA NOT BEING EXEMPT FROM OFFSHORE DRILLING: Zinke reiterated that his previous declaration of Florida being “off the table” for oil and natural gas drilling in federal waters does not represent official policy and is subject to review.

“Florida did not get an exemption,” Zinke said at Thursday’s hearing. “I could have put Florida off the list in the beginning. But had I kept Florida off, that would have been arbitrary and capricious.”

• Walking back: Zinke, as he promised Senate Energy Committee lawmakers on Tuesday, signaled he is prepared to scale back his controversial proposal to massively expand drilling in federal waters off the U.S. coasts.

At least 12 states want to be removed from the drilling plan, after Zinke said he would exclude areas off Florida.

• ‘Still in the process’: “All states are still in the process,” Zinke said. “My commitment to California and other states is at end of the day this president wants to take the consideration of local communities and of states. I have talked to every governor and we are committed to making sure our plan reflects the interest of local communities.”

FERC TO CONSIDER IMPACT OF TAX CUTS ON UTILITY RATES: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday voted to issue a notice of inquiry seeking comment on the potential impact of the GOP’s tax cuts on utility rates.

The order is intended to help FERC build a record on whether it needs to take further action.

FERC has received a flood of petitions, from consumer energy advocates to state energy commissions and governors’ energy offices, to force utilities and pipeline owners to cut rates in line with Trump’s reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent.

• ‘Historic stuff’: “This is historic stuff,” said Republican FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre. “Here we are not even to Tax Day with orders that address how to best address [tax reform] and how to best flow to consumers the benefits of the reduction in the corporate tax rate.”

FERC REJECTS CLIMATE CHANGE IN RE-APPROVING SABAL TRAIL PIPELINE: A divided FERC late Wednesday reissued its approval of the Sabal Trail pipeline, rejecting a ruling by a federal appeals court that it should better account for the project’s effects on climate change.

• Climate matters: In August, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled FERC when it approved the project did not properly evaluate the effects of greenhouse gas emissions from the natural gas shipped by the pipeline.

The ruling applied to the Southeast Market Pipelines Project, a network that includes the Sabal Trail pipeline to move natural gas across a number of states for delivery at Florida power plants.

The circuit court decision directed FERC to review the climate change effects of the Southeast Market pipelines or offer a compelling reason to not do so.

• Hard to tell: But on Wednesday, FERC reinstated its approval of the project, saying it could not determine the significance of the greenhouse gas emissions of burning the gas transported by the pipeline.

• Policy may change: The decision comes as FERC is reviewing its nearly 20-year-old policy for approving pipeline projects.

ENERGY DEPARTMENT’S TOP POLICY ADVISER SAYS WIND, SOLAR KEY TO DOMINANCE: The Energy Department’s top policy adviser on Wednesday tried to assure renewable energy advocates that the Trump administration’s energy agenda includes wind and solar.

“Renewables play a key role,” said Mark Menezes, the under secretary of energy, in an appearance at the American Council on Renewable Energy’s annual policy forum in Washington. “You can’t be energy dominant just in one fuel.”

• Fossil first: Energy Secretary Rick Perry has outlined an aggressive agenda to export oil and natural gas abroad to energyl-needy countries. He had aimed to provide special payments to ailing coal and nuclear plants before federal energy regulators blocked his plan from being implemented.

His 2019 budget proposal seeks deep cuts in the department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. And for the second year in a row, Perry has proposed eliminating the department’s energy startup incubator, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, a program with bipartisan support in Congress.

• Beating expectations: But Menezes was greeted warmly by renewable energy supporters, who say they are doing just fine.

Menezes tried to straddle a line of encouraging clean-energy innovation, but not at the expense of eliminating traditional “baseload” coal and nuclear.

“The same technological revolution making fossil fuels cleaner will help us produce renewables more affordably and efficiently at a faster time frame than many experts are predicting,” he said.

SOLAR’S GROWTH SLOWS IN 2017, AS TARIFFS PRODUCE ‘UNCERTAINTY’: Solar power’s growth in the U.S. slowed last year, with residential and utility scale installations falling for the first time since 2010, according to a new report.

The industry added 10.6 gigawatts of new capacity last year, a 30 percent drop from 2016, a record year, GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association said Thursday.

Silver lining: However, the report’s authors say the numbers could have been worse because of the “uncertainty” around tariffs President Trump imposed on solar panels this year, which prompted some project delays and cancellations.

The 2016 numbers were especially high because of an influx of installations before the anticipated expiration of the 30 percent federal investment tax credit, which was later extended.

“The solar industry delivered impressively last year despite a trade case and market adjustments,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association. “Especially encouraging is the increasing geographic diversity in states deploying solar, from the Southeast to the Midwest, that led to a double-digit increase in total capacity.”

• Where growth occurred: The non-residential solar market saw 28 percent growth last year, its fourth straight year of annual growth.

California and North Carolina remain the two largest solar states after adding the most and second-most capacity in 2017, respectively.

OIL DEMAND PROJECTED TO RISE FASTER THAN EXPECTED: Global oil demand is projected to rise faster than anticipated this year, as U.S. shale production surges, the International Energy Agency said Thursday morning.

Demand for crude worldwide will increase by 1.5 million barrels a day to 99.3 million barrels a day in 2018, the IEA in its monthly oil market report predicted

• Hunger for more: That represents larger growth than the agency’s previous projection of a 90,000-barrel increase this year.

IEA cites strong demand from Europe, the U.S. and Japan as driving the increase.

• Plenty to serve: The IEA this year estimated U.S. crude oil production will reach a record of 12.1 million barrels a day in 2023, up about 2 million barrels a day this year. That’s more than the 11 million barrels per day being produced by Russia.

RUNDOWN

Reuters Weathering Trump’s skepticism, U.S. officials still fighting global warming

Politico Texas, New Mexico drillers to get boost from Interior permit changes

Wall Street Journal Getting the ‘oil’ out: Norway’s Statoil rebrands

New York Times Hard-charging Chinese energy tycoon falls from Xi government’s graces

Washington Post The fast-melting Arctic is already messing with the ocean’s circulation, scientists say

Wall Street Journal Who is paying to fix outdated water and sewer systems? You are