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LET’S GET LEGISLATION STARTED: This week will provide the first evidence of how Democrats plan to transform President Joe Biden’s lofty green infrastructure proposals into actual legislation.
Biden kicks things off today by hosting lawmakers from both parties at the White House. Hearings later in the week will give us a sense if Republicans are prepared to engage on Democratic ideas, or plan to stick with their argument that the infrastructure discussion should be confined mostly to roads and bridges.
What to watch for: The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a hearing Wednesday on the insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund and will debate ways to transition from relying on the gas tax. Specifically, the committee, led by Biden ally Sen. Tom Carper, the Delaware Democrat who we recently interviewed, will explore the vehicle miles traveled tax, an idea that has struggled to gain traction that would impose a fee based on the miles driven by passenger cars. Biden has said he is open to alternative funding streams to act as “pay-fors” for his infrastructure plan, but is so far relying on corporate tax hikes and reforms.
Democrats’ ideas to combat pollution in “frontline communities” will get spotlighted on Thursday, when the House Energy and Commerce Committee hosts a hearing on the environmental justice provisions of the CLEAN Future Act. The House Appropriations subcommittee on transportation also has a hearing Thursday on the administration’s Transportation Department budget request, with Secretary Pete Buttigieg testifying.
What are Republicans thinking? Carper’s GOP counterpart, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, warned Biden against using Republicans “as a tool of bipartisanship only for the window dressing.”
“I want to get in there and really work it,” Capito said during an appearance this morning on Fox News, but she worries “they’re going to go ahead and do what they want anyway with reconciliation.”
Capito argued it’s “wrong and misleading” for the Biden administration to claim Republicans aren’t forward-thinking about the needs of infrastructure investments, but the “expansive” definition adopted by Biden represents a “Green New Deal wish list.”
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.
CARPER WANTS TO HELP WEST VIRGINIA WITH LOST FOSSIL FUEL JOBS: In a recent interview with Abby, Carper spoke more about his desire to hold a summit in West Virginia focused on how to bring economic opportunity to the state as the U.S. reduces fossil fuel use, including coal, to curb climate change.
Carper, who was born in West Virginia and still has relatives who live there, has mentioned his work to plan the summit in several legislative hearings this year. He has had preliminary conversations with West Virginia Sens. Capito and Senate Energy Committee Chairman Joe Manchin, as well as with the Aspen Institute and the president of West Virginia University.
The purpose of the summit would be to “bring in really smart people who have done this before, see what we can learn from other states, maybe even other nations, to help create that economic opportunity right now where there’s not a lot,” Carper said. The Senate Environment Committee has jurisdiction over regional economic development, including the Appalachian Regional Commission.
“We just want to help them help themselves,” Carper added. “It’s not something we’re going to do for West Virginia. We’re going to try to be enablers, facilitators, work together to help them have a brighter future, reclaim their future.”
The summit is another example of Democrats aiming to offer support to fossil fuel regions that stand to lose industry and jobs as the U.S. works to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. The Biden administration established an interagency working group to come up with ideas to help deliver federal resources to areas whose economies depend on coal, oil, and gas and to support workers employed by them.
BIDEN BREAKS WITH GREENS ON BY PUNTING ON DAPL: The Biden administration has decided not to order the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline to shut down while it completes an environmental review, dealing a blow to green groups and Native American tribes who had sought to stop it from operating, Josh reported Friday.
Ben Shifman, an attorney for the Justice Department, told U.S. District Judge Brian Boasberg that the federal government retains the authority to shut down the pipeline at any time while the Army Corps of Engineers finishes a new environmental review, which he said would be complete by March 2022. But environmental and tribal groups had been pressing for quicker action, arguing Dakota Access is operating illegally because federal courts found a Trump administration environmental review permitting the pipeline to be deficient.
“It’s a shame to see the Biden administration throw away such a clear opportunity to stand up for Indigenous rights and environmental justice,” Collin Rees, a senior campaigner with Oil Change U.S., told Josh. “Allowing DAPL’s continued operation maintains the Trump status quo.”
A decision to force a shutdown of Dakota Access — which has been carrying oil for more than three years from North Dakota to Illinois — would have been unprecedented because the pipeline is already operating, unlike Keystone XL, which Biden canceled on his first day in office.
KERRY TO TEST CURRENCY WITH CHINA VISIT: Climate envoy John Kerry is expected to travel to China this week in the first visit by a top Biden official, according to the Washington Post, which says the trip could still be called off. Kerry plans to meet with his counterpart Xie Zhenhua, who negotiated a deal with Kerry in 2014 for the U.S. and China partner on climate change, which helped produce the Paris climate agreement the following year.
The potential trip shows how the administration is looking to deliver on its pledge to prioritize collaboration with China on combating climate change, even as the two largest emitters clash over human rights, trade, intellectual property, and more.
During a visit to India last week, Kerry told local media that he is “hopeful” but “not confident” that China would get on board with taking aggressive climate action.
BIDEN IS READYING CLIMATE DISCLOSURE ORDER, KERRY SAYS: Biden is poised to issue an executive order that would require companies to disclose the risks they face from climate change, Kerry said last week during a virtual event hosted by the International Monetary Fund.
Kerry didn’t elaborate on the details of the order or the timing, but the move would fulfill a promise Biden made on the campaign trail to require all public companies to report their emissions and climate-related risks. Kerry said climate disclosure requirements will shift the allocation of capital.
“Suddenly, people are going to be making evaluations considering long-term risks to their investment based on the climate crisis,” Kerry said. “And that will encourage new investment, as well as laws in countries,” such as tax incentives to support clean energy technologies, he added.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has already taken initial steps toward potentially requiring climate disclosures from companies, issuing a request for public comment last month about what such a reporting framework should look like.
More in Abby’s story posted this morning.
BATTERY MAKERS’ SETTLEMENT LETS BIDEN OFF THE HOOK: LG Energy Solution and SK Innovation, two South Korean battery manufacturers, reached a settlement yesterday in a trade dispute that will allow SK Innovation to finish construction of a multi-billion dollar battery manufacturing plant in Georgia.
The companies’ agreement relieves Biden of having to decide whether to overturn a ruling from the International Trade Commission that would have barred SK Innovation from importing certain battery components for 10 years.
Under the settlement, SK Innovation will pay LG Energy Solution $1.8 trillion. The companies will also drop litigation against each other in both the U.S. and South Korea, and they agreed not to sue each other for 10 years. “We are dedicated to work together to support the Biden Administration’s climate agenda and to develop a robust U.S. supply chain,” said Jong Hyun Kim, CEO and president of LG Energy Solution, and Jun Kim, CEO and president of SK Innovation, in a joint statement.
Biden, in his own statement, lauded the settlement and praised U.S. trade representative Katherine Tai for her work to resolve the dispute. “We need a strong, diversified and resilient U.S.-based electric vehicle battery supply chain, so we can supply the growing global demand for these vehicles and components,” Biden said, adding the settlement “will bring some welcome relief to workers in Georgia and new opportunity for workers across the country.”
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE JOBS: The Biden administration this morning tried to ramp up the pressure on lawmakers to support its infrastructure plan by releasing state-by-state fact sheets that, among other things, detail the amount of clean energy jobs in each state and tout the opportunity for more job growth.
In Illinois, for example, there were 125,364 Illinoisans working in clean energy as of 2019, according to the White House, and the American Jobs Plan “invests in creating more good paying union jobs advancing clean energy production by extending and expanding tax credits for clean energy generation, carbon capture and sequestration and clean energy manufacturing.”
The White House also documents the vulnerability of each state to extreme weather, and makes the case for why the plan’s investments in resiliency could help. And it estimates the spending needs of each state for drinking water infrastructure.
SPEAKING OF JOBS: Jobs related to electric transportation could nearly double by 2024 in Illinois, a state particularly well positioned to benefit from boosting the nation’s EV manufacturing capacity and R&D spending on clean energy.
Illinois employed roughly 5,200 workers in 2019 in businesses tied to electrifying transportation, and that number could increase to 9,500 by 2024, according to a report released this morning by the clean energy business group Advanced Energy Economy.
Two-thirds of the current jobs are in manufacturing, which will continue to play a growing role, the report said. The report calls on policymakers in Illinois to accelerate growth by setting an EV adoption goal in the state of 1.2 million vehicles by 2030, establishing a tax credit for EV supply-chain companies that relocate to Illinois, and building a network of public charging stations.
The Rundown
New York Times Indian Point is shutting down. That means more fossil fuel.
Washington Post A California county, despite the state’s climate goals, further embraces fossil fuels
Reuters Once ‘green’ plug-in hybrid cars suddenly look like dinosaurs in Europe
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | APRIL 14
10 a.m. SD-106 Dirksen. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing entitled, “Long-term Solvency of the Highway Trust Fund: Lessons Learned from the Surface Transportation System Funding Alternatives Program and Other User-based Revenue Solutions, and How Funding Uncertainty Affects the Highway Programs.”
11 a.m. Green 2.0, US Climate Action Network, Climate Nexus, and the National Black Environmental Justice Network will hold a virtual event called, “The First 100 Days: The People’s Town Hall for Justice.” Speakers include Rep. Donald McEachin, D-Va. and Shalanda Baker, deputy director for energy justice at the Department of Energy.
THURSDAY | APRIL 15
10 a.m. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to examine the “role of the Department of Energy in energy innovation and how its research, development, demonstration, and deployment programs may be enhanced.”
10:30 a.m. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change will hold a remote legislative hearing on The CLEAN Future Act and environmental justice.
11 a.m. Room SH-216. The Senate Budget Committee will hold a hearing on “The Cost of Inaction on Climate Change.”
12 p.m. The House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis will hold a remote hearing titled, “Making the Case for Climate Action: The Growing Risks and Costs of Inaction.
TUESDAY | APRIL 20
12:30 p.m. The National Capital Area Chapter of the United States Association for Energy Economics’ will hold its annual Energy Policy Conference. The virtual event runs over two days.
