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BUSINESS GETTING GREENER: Big business is coming to an agreement that the U.S., and the world, must dramatically slash greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century, and CEOs want to ensure a carbon price, not heavy-handed mandates, is what gets them there.
Business Roundtable, a Washington group comprising the CEOs of leading U.S. companies, lent support Wednesday to a price on carbon as a centerpiece of new climate policy principles. Though they don’t back a specific pricing approach (like a carbon tax or cap-and-trade), the CEOs are clear they think the market, not regulation, is best suited to prompt emissions cuts.
The CEOs of dozens of major European companies are also stressing carbon pricing must play a central role in climate policy. Those CEOs, as part of the Energy Transitions Commission, are recommending carbon pricing on a global scale to help bring the world to net-zero emissions by 2050 — or domestically, with border tariff adjustments, if the world can’t agree on a price.
Evolving on climate: The announcements from the groups of CEOs show major companies are coming to grips with global climate goals and thinking more about what those will mean for their business. CEOs of big companies, even those of fossil fuel producers or heavy fossil fuel users, are now agreeing significant curbs in emissions over the next few decades.
Business Roundtable, for example, which includes CEOs of major U.S. oil producers like ExxonMobil and Chevron, is backing a goal to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 80% below 2005 levels by 2050.
The Energy Transitions Commission, in a report unveiled Wednesday, goes even further than that.
“We have become increasingly convinced across the commission that it is absolutely technologically and economically possible for the world to get to net-zero emissions by mid-century,” Lord Adair Turner, the Commission co-chair, told Abby. The Commission’s report sets a target for net-zero emissions in the developed world by 2050, and for some developing countries by 2060.
The report also makes the argument that actions to address climate change and slash emissions would have a minimal effect on global living standards, countering arguments from Republican lawmakers and other critics that aggressive climate policies would destroy the economy.
European CEOs say big changes are necessary: More broadly, the Energy Transitions Commission report acknowledges the world must make stark changes, including drastically reducing fossil fuel consumption and rapidly increasing renewable energy technologies and electrification, to reach net-zero emissions.
Business Roundtable — while backing pricing carbon and ramping up clean energy investment — doesn’t address any decline in fossil fuel consumption, instead stressing it will be important for the U.S. to ensure “a diverse spectrum of fuels and energy sources is available to meet growing global energy demand.”
For Turner, the most important thing is to start cutting emissions as soon as possible in this decade. “If you give yourself a 30-year timescale to go from here to net-zero, capitalism can do almost anything, because in a 30-year period, it’s going to replace most of its capital stock anyways,” he said.
But if the world waits until it has just 20 or even 10 years to make emissions cuts before 2050, it’s going to risk stranded assets and a much bigger price tag, he added.
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.
HOUSE DEMOCRATS TEE UP VOTE ON MAJOR CLEAN ENERGY PACKAGE: The House will vote next week on the Clean Economy and Innovation Act, a nearly 900-page sweeping energy bill meant to boost research and development of low-carbon energy (including renewables, nuclear, energy storage, and carbon capture and removal).
The measure combines a number of smaller energy-related bills, several of which are bipartisan, though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer framed the bill as the latest iteration of Democrats’ climate agenda.
Could major energy legislation cross the finish line this year? It’s looking increasingly possible (though in an election year, we won’t hold our breath). Last week, senators reached a deal on legislation limiting potent greenhouse gas coolants, which had proved to be the hang-up earlier this year preventing broadly bipartisan energy legislation from passing the Senate.
That bill, from the Senate Energy Committee duo Lisa Murkowski and Joe Manchin, isn’t an exact match of what House Democrats just introduced, but it’s similarly sweeping and would also offer a substantial boost to clean energy research and development.
CASTOR SLAMS HOUSE GOP FOR IGNORING CLIMATE: Rep. Kathy Castor, chair of the House Climate Crisis committee, is calling on her Republican colleagues to “do better” on climate change after House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy unveiled a new policy agenda that makes no mention of climate change.
“House Republicans remain completely unprepared and unwilling to solve the worsening climate crisis,” Castor said in a statement Tuesday. “A Republican House majority would continue Trump’s legacy of ignoring science and endangering public health, all so that polluters can turn a profit at the expense of the American people,” she added.
Castor called on House Republicans to work with Democrats on ways to address climate change. But Castor has found herself at odds with her GOP counterparts on the climate committee. Rep. Garret Graves, the top Republican on the committee, ripped Castor and her Democratic colleagues earlier this year for undermining trust on the panel by releasing a partisan climate change report that didn’t include its GOP members.
TRUMP’S ETHANOL MOVES NO MORE THAN ‘LIP SERVICE,’ BIDEN SAYS: Joe Biden is vying for corn-state voters, aiming to prove he’s the better candidate to boost U.S. biofuels production.
In a campaign statement Tuesday, Biden slammed President Trump for launching a “full-on assault on the ethanol industry” by undercutting the Renewable Fuels Standard and siding with oil refiners on the biofuels law. Biden also accused the Trump administration of playing politics with its recent decision to deny dozens of requests from small refineries to bypass RFS requirements in previous years of the program.
“Lip service 50 days before an election won’t make up for nearly four years of retroactive damage that’s decimated our trade economy and forced ethanol plants to shutter,” Biden said. He added his administration would “fight for family farmers and revitalize rural economies,” in part by “ushering in a new era of biofuels.”
COULD PEBBLE POLITICS BLEED INTO OTHER MINING PROJECTS? Politics threatening to derail approval of a large gold and copper mine in Alaska have Republican lawmakers worried that other mining projects around the country could face similar fates, Abby reports in a story for this week’s Washington Examiner magazine.
On Pebble Mine, the Trump administration was “simply wrong,” said Rep. Paul Gosar, an Arizona Republican and the chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus. “More importantly, we can’t let this process be an example of how we do or don’t permit mining in America.”
The politics surrounding Pebble Mine may not directly translate to other pending mining projects, given the high-profile players such as Donald Trump Jr. Nonetheless, the uncertainty around the project’s future could ultimately deter investment in U.S. mining more broadly, Republican lawmakers and other backers of the mine fear.
For example, northeastern Minnesota is poised to see a boom in its mining economy over the next several years. However, one of those projects, the Twin Metals mine, would be located near the 1.1 million-acre water-based Boundary Waters Canoe Area, wilderness and waters environmentalists say have similar rare qualities as the Bristol Bay waters in Alaska that mining would significantly harm.
BIPARTISAN PUSH ON BATTERY RECYCLING: New legislation introduced Tuesday by Rep. Paul Tonko and Rep. John Curtis would seek to jumpstart greater U.S. recycling of the critical minerals used in batteries, such as lithium.
Their bill comes as lawmakers, especially Republicans, have raised increasing concerns about U.S. reliance on other countries, including China, for the critical minerals needed for batteries, renewable energy technologies, military equipment, and other applications. The legislation would seek to increase recycling of lithium-ion batteries (currently only 5% are recycled in the U.S.) by establishing a research program at the Energy Department focused on critical mineral recycling, funded at $22 million per year through 2025, according to a fact sheet on the bill.
ENVIRONMENTALISTS JOIN METHANE LEGAL FRAY: A coalition of 10 environmental groups filed lawsuits Tuesday challenging the EPA’s moves to eliminate direct regulation of methane from the oil and gas sector and to relax requirements that companies survey their operations for pollution leaks and repair them.
Their lawsuits follow a challenge filed Monday by 20 states arguing the EPA’s elimination of methane regulation is unlawful. The environmental groups — including the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club — are also asking federal judges to pause the EPA’s elimination of direct methane regulation from taking effect while the court is reviewing whether it is legal.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Tristan Abbey has left the Republican staff of the Senate Energy Committee to launch a startup consulting firm, Comarus Analytics LLC, focused on energy, critical minerals, and trade. His last day at the committee was Tuesday.
Abbey developed Murkowski’s Strategic Energy Initiative, her long-term energy plan, and led her response to global oil market volatility at the onset of the pandemic.
In an earlier stint at the committee, he led Murkowski’s campaign to repeal the oil export ban. From 2017 to 2019, he worked for the Trump administration as the National Security Council’s director for energy and environment, among other roles.
The Rundown
Politico EPA postpones speaker series on racism after White House order
Washington Post Smoke in D.C.’s skies traveled thousands of miles from the West Coast
Reuters Hurricane Sally lumbers toward U.S. Gulf Coast, threatens ‘catastrophic flooding’
Financial Times US shale producers bleed cash despite slashed spending
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | SEP. 16
2:30 p.m. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining holds a hearing to review various bills.
