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PRUITT’S ETHICS CHALLENGES A DELIGHT FOR DEMOCRATS: Some senators have made poking at Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt a major part of their job, especially during his recent spate of Capitol Hill visits.

 • Pruitt vs. hump day: On Wednesday, Pruitt is scheduled to visit the Senate to defend his fiscal 2019 budget priorities, but all some lawmakers want to do is grill him over his numerous scandals involving excess spending, lobbyists planning lavish trips abroad, and big pay raises for his favorite staff.

• It’s all about the transgressions: Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., sent out a statement Tuesday morning announcing his plans to take Pruitt to task over his “ethical transgressions.” Pruitt is set to testify before the Appropriations Committee on Wednesday.

Udall is the top Democrat on the Appropriations panel for Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, which is holding the hearing.

• Snowball effect: Although Udall says he also will ask Pruitt about his fiscal 2019 budget priorities, the questions about his ethics issues likely will set the tone for the hearing.

• House delves into policy: Also on Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on EPA reforms for power plants, with Pruitt’s air chief, Bill Wehrum, testifying.

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TARGETING POWER GRID IS TOO EASY, ENERGY DEPARTMENT SAYS: Energy Secretary Rick Perry warned Monday that the electric grid is easier to attack than ever as he issued a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy.

• It’s so easy: “The frequency, scale and sophistication of cyber threats have increased, and attacks have become easier to launch,” the department’s plan says. “Nation-states, criminals, and terrorists regularly probe energy systems to actively exploit cyber vulnerabilities in order to compromise, disrupt, or destroy energy systems.”

• The Iran factor: The cybersecurity plan was released as federal and industry experts say Iran could target U.S. infrastructure in response to Trump’s scuttling of the nuclear deal.

• Too smart for its own good: The sophistication of the electric grid creates a situation of “growing interdependence among the nation’s energy systems,” which “increases the risk” of energy disruptions cascading from one state to the next, according to the Energy Department plan.

PRUITT GOT 24/7 SECURITY FROM FIRST DAY IN OFFICE: Pruitt was given round-the-clock security detail from his first day in office, the agency’s inspector general said Monday.

“EPA’s Protective Service Detail began providing 24/7 coverage of the administrator the first day he arrived,” Inspector General Arthur Elkins wrote in response to questions from Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Tom Carper of Delaware about what threats prompted Pruitt’s intense security coverage.

The inspector general’s office, which investigates threats made against EPA employees, “played no role in this decision,” Elkins said. It was made by the Office of Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics and Training.

• ‘Unprecedented’ threats: Pruitt is the first EPA administrator to have around-the-clock security, which has cost the agency more than $3 million. The EPA has cited an “unprecedented” amount of security threats made against Pruitt as the reason for his extreme protection.

• Precautionary move: But the Washington Post obtained an email that shows that a Trump administration political appointee decided to get Pruitt 24/7 security as he was assuming office. Don Benton, who served as the EPA’s senior White House adviser in the first weeks of the new administration, emailed agency security officials requesting the extra security as a precautionary measure against expected threats to Pruitt stemming from early controversial Trump administration policy moves, such as rolling back regulations.

EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said that “as the report says, EPA’s Office of Inspector General does not determine security assessments. EPA’s Protective Service Detail handles security decisions and this particular decision was made before Administrator Pruitt arrived at EPA.”

MOROCCO DEVELOPS ITS OWN NATURAL GAS AFTER PRUITT TRIP: The EPA chief’s visit to Morocco last year was meant partly to line up a new customer for U.S natural gas exports. But the North African kingdom is going its own way.

• Old-fashioned wildcatting: Morocco made some significant new discoveries in Lalla Mimouna through a permit granted to SDX Energy Inc., an international company focused on oil and gas development in Morocco and Egypt, according to reports.

• Good results: “We are very pleased with the results of this exploration well as it has significantly exceeded our pre-drill estimates for both reservoir quality and pay sand thickness,” said Paul Welch, president and CEO of SDX. The company will hold an investor call at the end of the week to discuss its plans.

• Was it worth it? Back in Washington, Pruitt is being investigated for visiting the country, which cost taxpayers more than $100,000 in travel and security costs. The EPA inspector general is also probing why Pruitt was there to promote U.S. natural gas exports.

• EPA’s defense: The EPA has said Pruitt was there to discuss the environmental pieces of a U.S.-Morocco free-trade deal finalized in February. But the press release at the time clearly states that it was also used as an opportunity to promote U.S. natural gas.

• Lobby lobby: A lobbyist who planned the trip is now officially working for the Moroccan government.

But Morocco’s plans to develop its own energy resources would appear to mean Pruitt’s natural gas pitch may have fell on deaf ears.

MARKEY PRODS PERRY OVER ‘MISUSE’ OF OBSCURE LAW TO SAVE COAL: Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Climate Task Force, is prodding Energy Secretary Rick Perry to not use an “obscure” law passed during the Korean War as a means of bailing out the coal and nuclear industry.

• Under consideration: Perry told lawmakers last week that he was considering using the law to help economically ailing power plants to continue to run under the government’s orders.

• The ‘prop up’ factor: Markey detailed in a letter to Perry sent Monday that using the Defense Production Act of 1950, or other provisions of the Federal Power Act meant, would be a misuse of federal authority to “artificially and unnecessarily prop up coal and nuclear plants that are no longer competitive, under the guise of an emergency.”

TARIFFS WON’T HAVE MUCH IMPACT ON SOLAR ENERGY, FEDS SAY: Tariffs on imported solar panels imposed by Trump won’t have much impact on long-term solar generation, the Energy Information Administration projected Tuesday.

“The tariffs on solar [photovoltaic] are expected to have an even smaller impact on electricity generation from end-use solar installations,” the EIA said in its “Today in Energy” report.

But the agency expects the cost for solar installation to rise about 10 percent as a result of the tariffs, which starts at 30 percent this year and falls by 5 percent annually for three more years.

BIPARTISAN LOVE FOR WIND AND SOLAR: Both Republicans and Democrats strongly support wind and solar power, says a survey from Pew Research Center released Monday.

Large majorities of Democrats and Republicans favor building more wind turbine farms (91 percent and 79 percent, respectively) and solar panel farms (93 percent and 84 percent).

• Partly cloudy: The survey also showed that Republicans are deeply divided on climate change, depending on their age.

About one-third of millennials in the GOP say the earth is warming mostly because of human activity, double the share of baby boomer or older Republicans who believe that.

In addition, 45 percent of millennial Republicans say they are seeing at least some effects of climate change in the communities where they live, compared with one-third of Republicans in older generations.

• Fossil fueled: Millennials are also less supportive than older generations in the GOP of fossil fuel energy development such as offshore drilling, coal mining and fracking. For example, 44 percent support the increased use of offshore drilling, compared with 75 percent of Republicans in the baby boomer and older generations.

ENERGY DEPARTMENT GIVES $72 MILLION FOR NEW HIGH-TEMPERATURE SOLAR SYSTEMS: The Energy Department announced Tuesday it is granting $72 million for new high-temperature solar power technology projects.

• How stuff works: The technology uses mirrors to reflect and concentrate sunlight onto a focused point, where it is collected and converted into heat.

The thermal energy can be stored and used to produce electricity whenever it is needed, even if the sun isn’t shining.

• Heat wave: Commercially available versions of the technology can reach only 565 degrees Celsius.

The high-temperature thermal systems targeted by the new funding program seek to achieve at least 700 degrees Celsius, which would boost the efficiency and lower the cost of the electricity.

EPA SEEKS TO SPEED PERMITTING WITH EFFICIENCY OFFICE: The EPA announced Monday it will create a new efficiency office to speed permitting reviews and shorten the time it takes for the agency to complete other functions, such as meeting legal deadlines.

The Office of Continuous Improvement aims to eliminate wasted and resources, Pruitt said during an event at EPA headquarters.

“Through lean management, EPA is tracking, measuring, and improving vital agency processes, such as permitting and meeting legal deadlines on time, for the first time,” Pruitt said. “Establishing the Office of Continuous Improvement will ensure that these actions are implemented throughout the agency and produce lasting results for years to come.”

HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE TO MARK UP ENVIRONMENT SPENDING BILL: The House Appropriations Interior-Environment subcommittee is meeting Tuesday to mark up a spending bill that would cut $100 million from the EPA’s budget.

The reduction would be dramatically less than steeper cuts sought by the Trump administration.  

The EPA would receive $8 billion in funding, a small reduction from fiscal 2018 and 2017, when the agency got $8.1 billion.

HOUSE TO VOTE ON BILL RECOGNIZING CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER WITH NATIONAL MONUMENT: The House will vote on a bill Tuesday night that would designate the Mississippi home of civil rights activist Medgar Evers as a national monument.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has recommended Congress make the home, where Evers was assassinated in 1963, a national monument.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., is bipartisan with wide support.

AFRICAN CITIES FOLLOW CALIFORNIA IN PLEDGING TO MEET PARIS CLIMATE DEAL: Some of the largest cities in Africa announced a climate change program Tuesday by pledging to develop their own separate plans to meet the greenhouse gas reduction requirements under the Paris climate accord.

• Ethiopia to Nigeria: The cities of Accra, Ghana; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Cape Town, Durban, Tshwane and Johannesburg, South Africa; Dakar, Senegal; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Lagos, Nigeria announced the C40 Climate Action Planning Africa Program in Lagos.

• Echoes from the U.S.: The effort resembles a similar effort led by Gov. Jerry Brown of California to pull together the U.S.’s largest cities and states to pledge commitments to Paris in the wake of President Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of it.

The nine African cities pledged to develop “robust and evidence-based long-term climate action plans that align with the ambitious objectives of the Paris Agreement.”

RUNDOWN

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