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HOUSE GOP RETREAT DETAILS: House Republicans are prioritizing energy and climate change as they craft a message at their annual retreat in Orlando this week that can help them win back the majority.
Republicans intend to announce an energy and climate task force, multiple sources familiar with the situation told Josh, to define an agenda they could carry out with control of the House.
This afternoon, Rich Powell, executive director of the conservative clean energy group ClearPath, will address Republicans at the retreat on why “innovation for clean energy and industrial policy is the best solution for tackling global emissions,” a spokesman for the group told Josh.
“He’ll highlight a few key policies that will be necessary to scale up private sector technologies, and build off the huge successes of the Energy Act of 2020,” the spokesman said, referring to the bipartisan energy innovation bill that passed Congress in December as part of the year-end spending bill.
Michael Shellenberger, a controversial proponent of nuclear power and skeptic of renewables, is also speaking at the retreat.
House Republicans’ focus on climate at their retreat comes after they broadcast a climate forum last week to counter President Joe Biden’s summit by promoting tax subsidies and government spending to boost development of clean energy technologies, and opposing larger policies to reduce fossil fuel use.
House Republicans also held a secret summit event in February, revealed first by Josh, to discuss how to position themselves to address climate change while in the minority this Congress. Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has sought to overhaul their party’s climate change platform and messaging to compete with Democrats and the Biden administration, partly in response to polls showing the GOP is vulnerable among young and suburban voters concerned about the environment and climate change.
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BIPARTISAN SENATE PROPOSAL EMERGES ON CLEAN ENERGY TAX CREDITS: Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, the ranking member of the Finance Committee, and Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island introduced a proposal this afternoon to provide federal tax subsidies for first-of-a-kind clean energy technologies.
The Energy Sector Innovation Credit, released as a discussion draft, is unique in that it is technology-neutral, providing new electricity sector tax credits to use applications rather than specific energy sources.
So, while existing clean energy tax policy provides subsidies for wind and solar, for example, this proposal would direct credits to applications such as energy storage, carbon capture for natural gas plants, advanced nuclear reactors, and offshore wind. For each technology, the incentive automatically ramps down as individual technologies scale up.
The proposal mirrors a similar version introduced in the House last year by Reps. Tom Reed, a Republican from New York., and Jimmy Panetta, a Democrat from California.
GRAVES ACCUSES BIDEN OF ‘DICTATORSHIP’ FOR CLIMATE PLEDGE: Republican Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana is taking exception to climate envoy John Kerry’s claim that the White House can lean on executive orders to achieve the Biden administration’s aggressive new target of cutting U.S. greenhouse emissions in half by 2030.
“This is one of the most financially impactful decisions of any administration in recent history, and they are bragging we will do this unilaterally without Congress,” Graves told Josh in an interview that ran this weekend. “That is a dictatorship.”
Graves, the top Republican on the House Select Committee on Climate Crisis, recently introduced legislation with other GOP leaders that would force the Biden administration to report to Congress before it submitted to the United Nations a new U.S. target to reduce emissions under the Paris Agreement. But the bill stands no chance of making it through the Democratic Congress.
But Graves sees a path for big reductions: Despite his concerns that the U.S. taking on a bigger burden than China — which is still increasing its emissions — Graves said he “absolutely” could foresee a path to make “aggressive” reductions of the type targeted by Biden.
It’s hard to see how that would happen, though, without reductions in fossil fuel use, which Republican policies don’t strive for.
NEWSOM’S FRACKING BAN: California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered state agencies on Friday to stop issuing new fracking permits by 2024 and to look for ways to phase out oil extraction altogether by no later than 2045.
The latter move makes California the first in the world to set an end date for oil production, and the timing syncs with the state’s target date to achieve carbon neutrality.
Newsom had insisted last fall that he couldn’t unilaterally ban fracking as governor, calling on the legislature to act instead, but he is now facing the prospect of a recall election that could remove him from office.
His action comes after environmentalists accused Newsom of not promoting legislation that failed to pass out of committee on April 13. The bill sought to halt the issuance or renewal of fracking permits beginning Jan. 1, 2022, faster than Newsom’s timeline.
Context matters: Newsom’s announcement on fracking, which must undergo a lengthy rule-making process, does not affect existing operations. California accounts for about 5% of U.S. oil production, but fracking only represents about 17% of the state’s oil and gas output.
Most fracking is concentrated in the San Joaquin Valley in Kern County, a rare Republican bastion in California represented by GOP leader McCarthy in Congress, making Newsom’s action politically polarizing.
THE PROBLEM WITH KERRY FLOATING A CARBON IMPORT TAX AGAIN: Fresh off the climate summit, Kerry is reiterating that Biden is interested in imposing a border adjustment tax on other countries with high pollution.
The problem is the administration is not promoting the passage of a carbon tax at home because of its political toxicity, and most experts agree the U.S. can’t credibly impose a tax on imports of carbon-intensive goods unless it has a pricing system in place.
“Biden is particularly interested in evaluating the border-adjustment mechanism,” Kerry told Bloomberg as one of a round of interviews he did after the climate summit. “He wants to see if that’s something we need to deploy.”
Kerry noted the European Union is poised to establish a carbon import tax on countries that do not impose levies on their own goods, a prospect he has been pushing back on.
In warning the EU not to act while floating the prospect of a U.S. border adjustment, Kerry seems to be pressing the Europeans to give the administration more time to impose carbon pricing down the line, so the U.S. would be in good standing and not subject Europe’s tax.
STATES ARE MOVING ON CARBON PRICING… The Washington state legislature passed a carbon pricing bill this weekend that would make it the second U.S. state to put a binding limit on emissions across all sectors of the economy.
The passage of the bill marks a win for Gov. Jay Inslee, the former presidential candidate and climate champion who previously failed to pass carbon pricing, both through the legislature and as a ballot measure.
The Climate Commitment Act creates a system capping all types of greenhouse gas emissions and requiring businesses to purchase permits to pollute. Money collected through the system would fund projects to cut emissions from transportation and to protect infrastructure against the effects of climate change.
BUT GREENS WANT A CLEAN ELECTRICITY STANDARD: More than 150 environmental groups sent a letter to Biden and congressional leaders urging them to include a clean electricity standard in infrastructure legislation and to use budget reconciliation to pass it if necessary.
Biden, of course, included a clean electricity standard in his $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal, one that models his campaign promise to require utilities to use carbon-free power by 2035.
“A Clean Electricity Standard is critical to achieving the bold targets the Biden Administration has set out, to cut emissions 50% by 2030,” said Leah Stokes, advisory board member of Evergreen Action, an environmental group that led the letter.
But even if Senate Democrats try to use reconciliation to pass it with a simple majority vote (an untested prospect the parliamentarian would have to rule on), it will be challenging for the party to reach consensus on the structure and timeline of the standard.
MARKETS NEED HELP TO LEAD ON CLEAN ENERGY, WHITE HOUSE WARNS: The huge new investments in clean energy development and manufacturing proposed as part of Biden’s infrastructure plan are necessary to help stay competitive with China, the White House Council of Economic Advisers said in a report published Friday.
The report warns that the U.S. government has failed to adopt a “robust” strategy to encourage innovation and deployment of clean energy, causing it to fall behind major trading partners.
It also says the U.S. has neglected to support fossil fuel workers through the transition to cleaner energy, unlike the EU, Britain, and Canada.
“Absent such a strategy, workers could be hit by the dual negative effects of declining jobs in high-carbon industries alongside too few new domestic jobs in the emerging carbon-free industries of the future,” the report says.
China is dominating by not relying on markets: While markets are already moving the U.S. to cleaner energy, it’s not happening at “a sufficient pace or scale.”
The U.S. has fallen to 10th in the world in terms of research and development investments as a percentage of GDP and, at the current pace, will soon lose its long-time spot as the largest R&D investor globally to China. For example, Chinese companies have a 60% market share in wind turbine manufacturing, nearly 80% for solar module cells, and over 80% for battery cells used in electric vehicles, the report says.
But the government must also support the next stage of the development process, demonstration, for emerging technologies such as carbon capture, utility-scale storage, low-carbon hydrogen, and advanced nuclear energy.
“Otherwise, investors are wary of high capital costs and the risks of expensive project delays,” the report said.
The Rundown
New York Times Halting the vast release of methane is critical for climate, UN says
Wall Street Journal Global emissions goals come with big cost and political hurdles
Bloomberg Total suspends Mozambique LNG temporarily on security threat
Calendar
TUESDAY | APRIL 27
10 a.m. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on the status of the Interior Department’s onshore oil and gas leasing program.
2:30 p.m. 406 Dirksen. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate, and Nuclear Safety will hold a legislative hearing on S.283, National Climate Bank Act.
WEDNESDAY | APRIL 28
10 a.m. 301 Russell. The Senate Environment and Public Works will hold a hearing on the EPA’s fiscal year 2022 budget request.
THURSDAY | APRIL 29
10 a.m. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing is to consider the nomination of Tommy Beaudreau to be deputy secretary of the Interior.
11 a.m. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change will hold a remote hearing on the EPA’s fiscal year 2022 budget request.
