SENATE ARMED SERVICES PANEL GRILLS PERRY ON WASTE: The Senate Armed Services Committee told Energy Secretary Rick Perry to clean up waste and abuse on the defense side of the department in a hearing Thursday, the first time an energy chief has visited the committee in more than a decade.

“A hearing like this is rare,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the acting chairman for the committee. “Our committee has not called a secretary of energy to testify in over 10 years. You ought to feel good about that,” Inhofe said, trying to be friendly before laying into the criticisms of the agency Perry has overseen for a little over a year.

• He’s trying: “I’m trying, sir,” Perry responded.

• No oversight: “The DOE’s defense programs, including the cleanup of nuclear waste have gone without sufficient oversight,” Inhofe said, before reading a thorough critique by committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz.

• Long list of cost overruns and security violations: “Unfortunately, the DOE has run up a long list of cost overruns, schedule delays, and violations of safety and security,” McCain wrote. “Put simply, they have all too often failed to meet mission requirements” with the billions of dollars the agency receives annually under the National Defense Authorization Act.

• Correct course: McCain said the Armed Services Committee will begin the oversight necessary to help the agency “correct course.”

The Energy Department houses the National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal. It also oversees several legacy weapons facilities that require clean up and decommissioning.

President Trump’s fiscal 2019 budget request seeks to increase funding for the agency in pursuit of development of new nuclear weapons. McCain noted that the fiscal 2019 request for NNSA and environment programs totals $20 billion, or 70 percent of the entire Energy Department’s budget.

Perry said he welcomed McCain’s oversight, saying the administration is focused on modernizing the arsenal while being committed to cleaning up the Savannah River and Hanford facilities. One of the first crises on Perry’s watch was a potential leakage incident at the Hanford site in Washington state.

PERRY DEFENDS SAUDI NUCLEAR ENERGY DEAL — IT’S US OR RUSSIA: The energy secretary defended the Trump administration’s pursuit of a deal to sell Saudi Arabia nuclear power plant technology, telling the Armed Services Committee that if it doesn’t strike an agreement with the kingdom, Russia or China will.

“At this particular time, it appears to me, either Russia or China is going to be a partner in building civil nuclear capability in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, or the United States,” Perry said in responding to questions about the proliferation risk by Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I.

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CONGRESS’ SPENDING DEAL REJECTS TRUMP’S PROPOSED EPA, ENERGY CUTS: Congress on Wednesday night released a fiscal 2018 spending bill that rejects Trump administration efforts to reduce funding for the Environmental Protection Agency and Energy Department.

After President Trump threatened to cut  the EPA budget by 31 percent, Congress decided to keep funding levels the same from fiscal 2017, at $8.1 billion.

• EPA highlights: Lawmakers decided to boost funding by $66 million for accelerating the cleanup of hazardous Superfund sites, a priority of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

The omnibus spending deal also included some interesting EPA policy riders, such as a provision exempting big farms from air pollution reporting requirements and requiring that biomass energy, or wood burning, be considered carbon-neutral.

• Clean energy programs saved: The Energy Department, meanwhile, would receive $34.5 billion, a $3.77 billion increase over fiscal 2017.

That includes $2.32 billion for the agency’s energy efficiency and renewable energy division, a 15 percent increase. Trump, who has promoted expanded fossil fuel development, had sought to cut funding for that division.

The agency’s fossil fuels office would get $726.8 million, up $59 million from fiscal 2017 and an increase of $447 million above Trump’s budget request.

Funding for Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, is increased by $47 million for a total of $353 million. ARPA-E is a program with bipartisan support in Congress that funds innovations in energy technology, such as battery storage.

• Oil reserve targeted again: The spending deal also continues what is becoming a tradition in Congress of ordering sales from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It calls for a sale of another 10 million barrels of government-owned crude to be sold from the reserve in fiscal 2020 and 2021. The fund currently has 665 million barrels of crude.

• National Park repairs: The Interior Department’s budget calls for an 8 percent increase for the National Park Service and includes a $154 million increase to address the parks’ $11.6 billion repair backlog.

CONGRESS REACHES WILDFIRE FUNDING DEAL AS PART OF SPENDING BILL: Congress reached a long-sought deal to fix chronic problems in funding wildfire response and prevention, after the government struggled last year to respond to the most expensive year ever for the fires.

• Funding woes: The fires have compounded funding woes at the Forest Service, which has had to borrow from other accounts because its firefighting funding runs out, a practice known as “fire borrowing.”

Under current law, forest fires are not treated the same as other natural disasters such as hurricanes.

That forces the Forest Service to take money from accounts dedicated to preventative maintenance, such as clearing underbrush.

• Break on borrowing: The new wildfire package included in the 2018 spending bill ends the Forest Service practice of fire-borrowing by establishing a contingency account for use in bad fire years, funded with more than $2 billion a year through 2027.

It includes more than $100 million for fire prevention projects and recreation programs.

And it expands the ability of states to partner with the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to establish “forest management projects” that would allow the agency to remove dead or dying timber and sell it to mills. The Forest Service then could use the proceeds to care for the forests and make them more resilient to wildfires.

BIPARTISAN BILL WOULD ADDRESS FUTURE OF COAL: Congress is pushing for legislation to shore up coal plants and make them competitive in a carbon-constrained world.

A new bipartisan bill will be introduced by John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., the committee’s most ardent supporter of tackling climate change.

The bill would support carbon capture technology that helps to limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from coal plants. The bill would build on the incentives passed under the previous funding bill.

The bill is expected to be released early Thursday afternoon.

CARBON EMISSIONS RISING AGAIN, IEA SAYS: Global emissions of carbon dioxide rose by 1.4 percent in 2017 after a three-year pause, the International Energy Agency said in a report late Wednesday.

Emissions rose despite the expansion of wind and solar power and the continued move away from coal.

• Hunger for energy: The rise in emissions came as global energy demand grew by 2.1 percent, more than twice the growth of the year before. About 70 percent of that demand was met by fossil fuels. But lower-emission natural gas reached 22 percent of global energy demand, a new record for the fuel.

Renewables also grew strongly, making up about a quarter of the growth in global energy demand.

Demand for coal increased 1 percent after two years of declines.

• Climate siren: IEA warned the increase in emissions is bad news in the climate change battle.

“The significant growth in global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in 2017 tells us that current efforts to combat climate change are far from sufficient,” IEA director Fatih Birol said.

ROSS LAYS OUT RULES FOR TARIFF EXEMPTIONS: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Thursday laid out the process for U.S. companies getting exclusions from the administration’s steel and aluminum tariffs. The exclusions will be available only for companies that use steel and aluminum for business purposes inside the U.S., he said.

• Hundreds of requests: “We have have already gotten in 100-200 request inquiries and we are literally processing them as we sit here this morning,” Ross told the House Ways and Means Committee.

• The rules: To be eligible, companies must be in construction, manufacturing or supplying products to end-users, such as the oil, natural gas and pipeline industries. Foreign-owned companies would be eligible provided that the steel and aluminum was used inside the U.S. at a facility with U.S. employees.

The requests will be reviewed by the government with determinations to be made within “no more than 90 days,” Ross said.

• ‘Only fair’: During that 90-day period, any tariffs paid would be put into escrow and returned to the company if an exclusion is granted, Ross added, saying that was “only fair.”

The administration will reserve the right to withhold an exclusion if the request comes from a company that has stopped production but will reverse the decision if production is ramped back up.

The determinations will be made public on a rolling basis and there will be an appeal process.

ZINKE BROUGHT SECURITY TEAM TO VACATION IN TURKEY AND GREECE: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and his wife, Lola, brought a taxpayer-funded security team to a vacation in Turkey and Greece last year.

Politico received documents from the Project On Government Oversight that show Zinke used a security detail on a two-week wedding anniversary vacation in August, during which he was not conducting government business.

• Unanswered questions: The documents do not say how much the security cost, who paid for them, how many security personnel accompanied the couple, or whether they traveled with Zinke and his wife for the entire trip, which included Istanbul, Athens and Greek islands.

• Risk of violence: But the Interior Department told the Washington Examiner that Zinke used U.S. Park Police officers for security because of worries of violence in the region.

“The United States secretary of the Interior is in the presidential line of succession and has access to sensitive and classified information, which makes his protection a matter of national security,” said Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift.

“In 2016 there were at least five terrorist attacks in Istanbul where the secretary traveled. During the period of travel, there were several security incidents and threats in the region. Both of these considerations further merited a prudent security presence.”

• Ongoing probe: The Interior Department inspector general is investigating Zinke over his use of military and chartered flights, and his attendance at political events while on official travel.

MORE TRAVELGATE: EPA SAYS PRUITT’S PREDECESSORS TOOK EXPENSIVE FLIGHTS: The EPA sought to defend Pruitt’s travel habits on Wednesday, highlighting data showing his predecessors in the Obama administration also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on international trips.

Pruitt spent more than $105,000 on first-class flights in his first year, according to documents the EPA provided to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

• ‘Double standard’: Jahan Wilcox, an EPA spokesman, says Pruitt’s travel expenses are similar to former EPA administrators.

He noted that former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, Pruitt’s predecessor during the Obama administration, also incurred “numerous” security-related travel expenses abroad. He said McCarthy and her security detail spent $68,382 traveling to Ghana in 2016 and $45,139 to Peru the same year.

Wilcox, in a statement to the Washington Examiner, accused the media of having a “double standard” with how it scrutinizes Pruitt’s travel.

• Caveats apply: McCarthy always flew coach, however. In addition, the documents provided to Congress are incomplete. The documents do not include expenses for Pruitt’s aides and personal security detail. Those costs can be significant.

A watchdog group on Tuesday released documents showing the EPA spent nearly $31,000 on Pruitt’s security detail during a June trip to Italy.

• First class for security team: Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said Wednesday evening that the EPA provided them details showing Pruitt’s security detail has flown first class with him.

“When Mr. Pruitt appears before the Energy and Commerce Committee next month, he must be prepared to explain why U.S. taxpayers should foot the bill for his lavish travel habits.”  said Reps. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the committee’s top Democrat, Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., in a statement.

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