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SENATORS WARN THAT CYBERSECURITY IS AT LEAST AS NEEDED AS THE WALL: Sen. Maria Cantwell, the former top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, observed Thursday that as much urgency is needed in protecting the energy system from foreign hackers and bad actors as is being shown in the debate over the border wall.

“We should be spending enough time on this, believe me, as we are on this wall discussion,” Cantwell said, fearing that both Congress and the administration have not sufficiently addressed threats from cyber attacks.

Republican chairwoman Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she didn’t want to be put in a position where 20 years from now, people look back and ask “what were they thinking?” in not taking steps to address the threat against the nation’s energy system.

“There is simply too much on the line,” she said, chairing a hearing on cyber security on Thursday.

Where is Trump on the issue? The White House hasn’t really gotten involved, at least not publicly, in the discussion over what the nation’s direction should be on cyber security protections, especially with the bulk of the nation’s electricity coming from natural gas power plants supplied by pipelines.

President Trump maintains that coal is part of the answer, arguing that coal plants are more resilient to physical attacks than pipelines. Trump failed on Thursday to stop a coal plant from closing in Kentucky, however, as the Tennessee Valley Authority voted to transition the plant in question to natural gas.

Where the debate is going: But the debate has progressed beyond the administration’s ideas about grid resilience and coal. Now, the debate is centered on whether natural gas pipelines should abide by the same mandatory reliability regulations already in place for electric utilities.

Trump appointees at yesterday’s hearing in the Senate skirted around the issue of new regulations, choosing not to give direct “yes” or “no” answers on whether they would support mandatory security rules.

But different sides of the energy sector are already drawing battles lines on the issue.

John outlined the coming fight on Capitol Hill in a new magazine piece, which shows how energy consumers, like Dow Chemical, want mandatory security regulations for pipelines, while the oil and gas industry wants to keep the rules voluntary in discussions with the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration.

But even those discussions have been delayed by the border wall fight. The resulting government shutdown stalled talks on new security measures for pipelines for nearly two months.

The discussions with industry only began to resume this week between the oil industry and TSA, industry sources tell John.

MEANWHILE … WHATEVER HAPPENED TO TRUMP’S ETHANOL PUSH? The government shutdown and border wall fight also posed problems for Trump’s efforts to help ethanol producers and corn farmers open up a new market for higher ethanol fuel blends.

But Monte Shaw, Iowa’s top ethanol lobbyist, tells John that with a little luck, he thinks the Environmental Protection Agency can issue the regulations by the June 1 deadline, marking the  beginning of the summer driving season.

Trump’s plan would scrap rules that prohibit 15-percent ethanol fuels from being sold during the summer months. Trump promised the ethanol producers and farmers that EPA would take all necessary actions to fulfill his promise.

But Monte says EPA would have to be pulling together the regulations now, in February, in order to meet the June deadline.

“EPA is still telling people they’ll get the rule done by June 1,” Shaw told John in an email. “Even in a super expedited fashion, one would assume EPA would need to get the draft rule to [the White House Office of Management and Budget] before the end of February for that to happen.”

However, Shaw hasn’t seen OMB post any updates indicating that has occurred.

Nevertheless, he continues to hold EPA chief Andrew Wheeler to his word from his recent confirmation hearing. Wheeler, at the time, said the shutdown would not impact meeting the deadline if the shutdown ended “reasonably soon.”

The shutdown ended two days later, which to Shaw “fits the definition of ‘reasonably soon.’ But who knows?” he added.

Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers John Siciliano (@JohnDSiciliano) and Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe). Email [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.  

TRUMP WON’T USE PUERTO RICO OR TEXAS DISASTER FUNDS FOR BORDER WALL AFTER GOP PUSHBACK: A White House official briefing reporters earlier this morning said no disaster funds from Texas or Puerto Rico are being directed toward the border wall via the emergency declaration announced Friday.

“You’ll notice what’s not on the list is taking away any of Puerto Rico and Texas disaster relief money,” the official told reporters.

Lawmakers, including Republicans, had feared Trump would use disaster funds for the wall.

Congress has appropriated billions in disaster aid that the administration has yet to disburse through either the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The funds include over tens of billions of dollars in disaster aid that Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas, and California have yet to receive. Puerto Rico, the U.S. territory that was buffeted by hurricanes in the fall of 2017, has over $20 billion in promised aid that it has yet to receive.

Trump could have used authority granted under the section of the law governing military action to redirect Army Corps of Engineering funds to border wall construction. Congress designated about $2.5 billion in funding toward an Army Corps project to aid with the damage that Puerto Rico’s electrical grid endured in late 2017.

GREEN GROUPS READY TO SUE TRUMP OVER EMERGENCY ORDER: Environmental lawyers are preparing to sue the Trump administration as the president issues his emergency order to expand a wall along the country’s southern border.

Earthjustice president Abigail Dillen said her group of environmental lawyers “must be prepared to use the full power of the law” to challenge Trump’s “cynical” move.

The group has provided lawyers in several lawsuits against the administration for waiving environmental laws and other regulations to construct portions of the wall already being built on the border.

SCHUMER SAYS GOP WON’T EMBARRASS DEMOCRATS WITH GREEN NEW DEAL VOTE: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday that Democrats won’t be embarrassed if Republicans call up the Green New Deal resolution for a vote and encouraged Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to “go for it.”

“Bring it on. You think it might embarrass Democrats to vote on a nonbinding resolution that some of us may support but not others,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Trust me, we’ll be fine because the American people know that our entire party actually believes that climate change is happening and it’s caused by humans.”

Schumer described McConnell’s move as “a political stunt” and a “cheap, cynical ploy” given that Senate Republicans are unlikely to support the measure. He said Senate Democrats would try to attach amendments to the resolution that will mean their Republican colleagues in the chamber will also have to take a public position on climate change.

“Let’s see if anything has changed since 2015 when only five brave Republicans were able to vote yes on a resolution saying climate change is real and caused by humans,” Schumer said.

CONSERVATIVE, CENTRIST CLEAN ENERGY GROUPS MAKE CASE FOR NUCLEAR: Conservative and centrist clean energy groups are urging for nuclear power to be a component of any comprehensive policy to combat climate change.

A coalition of groups released a white paper Friday arguing U.S. and global climate goals can’t be met without existing nuclear power and the development of smaller advanced next-generation reactors.

“As we look at decarbonizing our power grid it’s clear that a diverse set of low-carbon technologies is essential to move rapidly and affordably. Nuclear needs to be in that mix.” said Spencer Nelson, the program director for the energy innovation program at ClearPath, a conservative clean energy group.

Other groups on the paper include Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, American Council for Capital Formation, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions Forum, and the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The groups says deep decarbonization in the power sector cannot be achieved with renewables alone — absent mass use of energy storage technologies — because wind and solar are variable depending on weather conditions and time of day. Resources available on-demand, such as nuclear and carbon capture, can help complement that variability.

Despite nearly a decade of growth in wind and solar, nuclear is the largest source of zero-carbon electricity in the U.S. The groups say recent and upcoming retirements of aging and expensive nuclear plants will make decarbonization harder. Advanced nuclear reactors, meanwhile, won’t be ready for deployment until the mid 2020s.

REPUBLICAN SENATOR SAYS NATURAL GAS HAS MORE ROOM TO HELP CLIMATE: Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., argued Thursday further improvements to natural gas production and development of export infrastructure could be a “pro-jobs” approach to combating climate change.

Cassidy invited reporters to a roundtable briefing in his office, where he criticized the Green New Deal as a job-killer, but did not offer a comprehensive alternative plan to achieve deep decarbonization.

“The Green New Deal would be awful for the country and greenhouse gas emissions,” he told reporters, arguing the resolution would force manufacturing to move overseas to countries such as China with less strict emissions-control rules. “Republicans believe in markets. We don’t believe in some kind of fiat to shut down something.”

How he says gas could help more: In a corresponding white paper, Cassidy argued natural gas can complement renewables because gas plants can ramp-up quickly, He said there is more potential for emissions reductions from natural gas with combined-cycle power plants that burn gas to generate electricity, and capture and recycle the produced heat to generate more electricity.

He claimed the natural gas industry is doing more to combat leaks of methane, which is a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon. He said there are endless opportunities for the U.S. to export natural gas to coal-dependent countries such as China if more export terminals are build along the Gulf Coast.

“There is more pop in the conversion to natural gas than has been attributed,” he said. “We have not run out of that benefit.”

WHITE HOUSE HAS GRANTED ONE QUARTER OF TARIFF EXCLUSION REQUESTS: The White House has granted about one out of every four requests made for an exception to its 25 percent steel tariffs, granting relief to companies that say they can’t find comparable products made inside the U.S.

“As of February 11th, 66,001 steel and 9,548 aluminum exclusion requests have been filed. Overall, 21,468 steel exclusion decisions have been posted (16,093 were approved),” Commerce Department spokesman Kevin Manning told the Washington Examiner. The ratio of requests made to exclusions granted has held steady over the last few months.

RUNDOWN

Roll Call Some GOP lawmakers are thawing on climate change

Wall Street Journal BP projects renewables and natural gas to dominate energy growth

Reuters US shale executives predict oil production constraints to remain

Axios Australia’s coal exports are booming despite climate change concerns

New York Times Where glaciers melt away, Switzerland sees opportunity

SPONSOR MESSAGE: 
Separating Fact from Fiction – GAIN Launches Fact Checker Site
The spread of misinformation about energy infrastructure projects is unfortunately not a new phenomenon. The GAIN Coalition recently launched a new website dedicated to countering targeted attacks of coordinated disinformation campaigns by so-called environmental activists. Through fact checking and original reporting, GAINFactChecker.org will provide straightforward, evidence-based analysis in order to increase the public’s knowledge and understanding of pipeline infrastructure.