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TRYING TO REVIVE THE BIPARTISAN ENERGY BILL: Senators of both parties on the Energy Committee are touting their sidelined sweeping energy package as a way to reinvigorate the industry.
“As we are looking to assist our economy with recovery, this is ready made fresh,” Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski, a Republican and lead author of the bill, said at the outset of a hearing Tuesday on the effects of coronavirus on the energy industry.
Rewind the tape: The legislation, the American Energy Innovation Act, contains pieces of more than 50 bills that have already cleared the Senate Energy Committee. It includes provisions to boost technologies such as advanced nuclear, energy storage, carbon capture, energy efficiency, geothermal power, and emissions-cutting technologies in the industrial sector.
After seeming to have a path to passage, the bill was derailed just before the pandemic by a dispute over whether to allow a vote on a bipartisan amendment to limit greenhouse gas refrigerants, called HFCs.
Murkowski told Politico this week that the Senate leadership seems no closer to helping resolve the dispute.
“We have not given up on it,” said Joe Manchin, the committee’s top Democrat and co-sponsor, at the Tuesday hearing. “Emissions will begin to bounce back as our country re-opens. [The bill would] put people back to work and advance clean energy goals.”
Lisa Jacobson, the president of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, who testified at the hearing, urged Congress to pass the energy bill, which she said would “send a signal to the marketplace that clean energy jobs can be forward leaning in our economy.”
Pressure on McConnell: Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, told Josh in a recent interview that the onus is on Senate Leader Mitch McConnell to mend disagreements over the bill. It already easily cleared the Energy Committee.
“If Mitch brings it up for a vote, we can do it,” King said. “As a rank and file legislator, there is a real appetite around here for getting things done.”
Manchin, in a separate interview with Josh, agreed.
“I hope leadership steps forward and says enough is enough,” he 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.
OIL’S ROLLER COASTER RIDE: Global oil demand is on pace to fall by a record amount this year due to the pandemic, but will rebound to its largest increase ever in 2021, the International Energy Agency projected Tuesday.
World oil consumption will drop by 8.1 million barrels per day in 2020 to 91.7 million barrels per day before recovering by 5.7 million barrels per day in 2021, the largest annual increase ever recorded. Oil prices rose on the news, with the international benchmark, Brent crude, trading above $40 per barrel Tuesday morning.
The world will consume 97.4 million barrels per day in 2021, still lower than the globe’s normal appetite of 100 million barrels per day before the coronavirus forced people into their homes and to drive and fly less. Total oil demand might not fully recover to pre-coronavirus levels until 2023, the IEA said.
“While the oil market remains fragile, the recent modest recovery in prices suggests that the first half of 2020 is ending on a more optimistic note,” the IEA said.
But IEA’s forecast for oil demand the rest of the year is still 500,000 barrels per day more than it predicted last month, due to a faster than expected exit in countries from lockdown measures and a return to regular activities, especially in China and India.
JONI ERNST IS READY TO HOLD EPA’S ‘FEET TO THE FIRE’ ON THE RFS: “I know that they know we’re watching,” the Iowa Republican, up for reelection this year, told Abby in a recent interview.
“This is an issue I’m very comfortable in talking to President Trump about, so I think if they are smart, they will watch their p’s and q’s and understand that the president has made a commitment to our nation to support the Renewable Fuel Standard,” she added.
Ernst and other corn-state lawmakers are fighting efforts by their oil-state colleagues to convince the Trump administration to waive this year’s biofuels blending requirements amid the pandemic. Several oil state governors have asked the EPA for exemptions, warning of severe economic hardship. Ernst recently led a group of bipartisan senators appealing directly to Trump asking him to direct the EPA to reject the requests.
Much more on Ernst’s defense of the RFS, as well as her work on infrastructure and wind power, in Abby’s piece for this week’s Washington Examiner magazine.
MAY WASN’T AS BAD FOR CLEAN ENERGY BUT IT COULD GET WORSE: Far fewer clean energy workers lost their jobs in May than in recent months, but the sector isn’t out of the woods yet.
Since the pandemic began, the clean energy sector has lost more than 620,000 jobs, including another 27,035 in May, according to new analysis published Monday by BW Research, Environmental Entrepreneurs, the American Council on Renewable Energy, and E4TheFuture. BW Research raises concerns more layoffs could come as the Paycheck Protection Program’s employment window expires.
Clean energy groups have for months been seeking emergency relief from Congress, but even House Democrats haven’t obliged. The situation has many rank-and-file Democrats putting more pressure on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to do something to stem the sector’s job losses. Abby has more on the political dynamics here.
Democrats aren’t the only ones alarmed by clean energy’s job losses: Murkowski said she’s going to be working to secure a similar “level of relief” for clean energy as other businesses have received.
“There was a letter by some of my Senate colleagues here calling for Senate and House leadership to prioritize a robust clean energy recovery plan. And I read that letter with interest because I agree with them,” Murkowski told Politico of Democrats’ recent push. She added it’s “interesting” that House Democrats in their recent virus relief bill were “kind of quiet on making sure that there was support for the clean energy sectors.”
NET-METERING PETITION MET WITH OVERWHELMING OPPOSITION: The critics included Republican governors, state utility regulators (including from red states like Texas, Georgia, and Kansas), 31 state attorneys general, conservative clean energy groups, and a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers (including Republicans like Arizona’s Paul Gosar and Texas’ Louie Gohmert).
The petition — brought in April by the New England Ratepayers Association — found far fewer supporters, largely free market think tanks like the Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard’s Electricity Law Initiative, has a thorough run-down of many of the comments filed Monday in this tweet thread.
Why the petition matters: NERA is arguing that net-metering — which credits residential solar customers for the power they add to the grid — is subject to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s jurisdiction, instead of the states. Such a shift in regulatory oversight would undercut net-metering programs around the country, opponents of the petition argued in their comments.
Critics are also raising red flags about the group pushing the petition, which claims to be acting on behalf of New England ratepayers. Watchdog group Public Citizen, in its comments on the petition, suggested NERA functions more like a trade association advancing the interests of a few companies (potentially major utilities). Utilities were largely silent on the NERA petition, and their biggest trade group, the Electric Edison Institute, didn’t file comments.
ADVANCED NUCLEAR REACTORS ACHIEVE MILESTONE: California-based Oklo made history Monday, becoming the first producer of a non-light water advanced reactor to have its application accepted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for review.
“Advanced reactors are an important tool for climate change, and we are proud to be the first to submit a full license application and the first to have it accepted,” said Oklo’s CEO and co-founder, Jacob DeWitte.
The Department of Energy, which has provided funding for the project, hailed the development as a breakthrough for smaller nuclear reactors.
“Advanced nuclear is on the horizon!,” tweeted Rita Baranwal, the Energy Department’s top nuclear energy official.
Oklo is seeking to build and operate its Aurora reactor at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory. The company first submitted its application for the reactor, which can produce 1.5 megawatts of power, to the NRC in March.
The NRC said it intends to provide a “predictable and efficient” licensing schedule on deciding whether to approve the project as it implements a streamlined approval process for small reactors as required by Congress.
TRUMP SEEKS SUPREME COURT’S HELP ON PIPELINES: The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to reverse a district court decision to temporarily freeze use of a fast-track permit for oil and gas pipelines, a move that has blocked construction of new pipelines, including the Keystone XL at the heart of the litigation.
In a petition Monday, Solicitor General Noel Francisco said the district court “lacked any sound basis” to vacate the Army Corps’ so-called nationwide permit 12 for the Keystone XL pipeline, and he added the court’s decision to pause use of the permit entirely was “vastly overbroad.” The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently rejected requests from the Trump administration and industry to lift the pause on the nationwide permit.
GM PREPS ‘STEADY DRUMBEAT’ OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES: The automaker is still set to unveil designs for its much-anticipated all-electric Hummer and its all-electric Cadillac crossover this year, though virtually due to the pandemic, said Mary Barra, the company’s CEO.
Barra, speaking to reporters Monday at an event hosted by the Automotive Press Association, reiterated the company’s commitment to an all-electric future, saying the company has a “steady drumbeat” of electric products coming to market, including a revamped Chevy Bolt later this year.
“We’re very positive on electric vehicles,” Barra said, adding the company’s goal is to provide EVs that customers want to buy because of their value, and not because of regulatory pressures or electric car mandates.
EVs allow an opportunity for General Motors to grow its market share, Barra added. The company has always been “very strong in the middle of the country” and not “as strong on the coasts,” but the coasts are where electric cars “are having the most success,” she said.
GOP MEMO TO NATURAL RESOURCE COMMITTEE DEMOCRATS: PLAY BY THE RULES: House Natural Resources Committee Republicans accused Democratic chairman Raul Grijalva on Tuesday of hosting “partisan, misleading” virtual forum events during the pandemic without inviting GOP members or allowing them to offer a witness.
The Republicans, in a letter to Grijalva, say he should stop hosting the forums because they violate committee rules.
“We ask that the Committee rules be followed, and that the broadcast and distribution of these partisan and grossly misleading forums cease immediately,” wrote the Republicans, led by ranking member Rob Bishop and Bruce Westerman.
Democrats’ have hosted more than a dozen virtual forums or roundtables, viewable on the committee’s YouTube and Facebook accounts, but have also advertised them on the committee’s official webpage.
BIPARTISAN BILL WOULD BOOST EFFORTS TO STORE CARBON IN OCEANS: Murkowski and Sheldon Whitehouse — the Alaska Republican and Rhode Island Democrat who co-chair the Senate Oceans Caucus — introduced a bill to increase federal research into “blue carbon,” or the carbon stored in oceans and coastal ecosystems, and set targets for protecting and restoring those coastal ecosystems. The legislation would also direct the National Academies of Sciences to explore how much carbon could potentially be stored in the seafloor, as well as technologies that could remove CO2 directly from the ocean.
The Rundown
New York Times NOAA chief violates ethics code in furor over Trump tweet, agency says
Reuters Chesapeake Energy to file for bankruptcy as soon as this week
Bloomberg The tax rule that inspired billionaires and movie stars to back climate moonshots
Reuters Special report: Millions of abandoned oil wells are leaking methane, a climate menace
Calendar
TUESDAY | JUNE 16
12 p.m. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy holds a remote hearing entitled, “Reviving our Economy: COVID-19’s Impact on the Energy Sector.”
WEDNESDAY | JUNE 17
10 a.m. 106 Dirksen. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds an oversight hearing entitled, “Responding to the challenges facing recycling in the United States.”
