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EXCLUSIVE: The head of the House Oversight Committee is seeking information and briefings from the United Nations over its Net-Zero Insurance Alliance, citing concerns over ESG requirements and probing whether companies have made climate commitments that could harm U.S. taxpayers and violate antitrust law.
It’s the latest salvo in the Republican-led effort to push back against ESG initiatives, which lawmakers argue clashes with insurers’ obligations to protect the interests of their clients.
In a letter shared exclusively with the Washington Examiner, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer criticized the lack of oversight or accountability from the UN-brokered climate alliance, which was launched in 2021 and requires any insurers to commit to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions as a condition of membership.
Comer also requested all documents, communications, and a staff-level briefing to help the committee ascertain U.S. involvement. “No country is a larger financial contributor to the UN than the U.S.,” he said in the letter sent to Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S Ambassador to the U.N.
“As such, U.S. tax dollars sent to the UN supporting NZIA and other climate-related measures could harm U.S. business and financial institutions and risk violating federal and state laws,” he added.
Because the Biden administration sought more than $4 billion for the U.N. funding programs in its fiscal year 2024 budget, Comer said, it’s crucial for lawmakers to have clarity into NZIA and into its mission, including whether any of its endeavors harm U.S. businesses or run afoul of U.S. laws.
The effort comes just months after 23 U.S. Republican attorneys general demanded NZIA members hand over documents and communications concerning their climate commitments, which they said appear to violate both federal and state antitrust law.
In response to the blowback, insurers have reconsidered membership and even departed from the alliance in an effort to avoid political or legal ramifications, including recent departures from AXA, Allianz, and SCOR, all of which have business in the U.S.
But as Comer noted, exiting NZIA does not release former members from its Principles for Sustainable Insurance—or PSI—commitments made upon joining.
“Through the UN system, advancers of the ESG agenda like the NZIA can take advantage of the complexity to force radical environmental activism which raises prices, deters investment of new technologies, and prevents human flourishing,” he said.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Breanne Deppisch (@breanne_dep) and Nancy Vu (@NancyVu99). 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.
A VISION FOR HYDROGEN TAX CREDIT: A number of clean energy and business groups are eagerly waiting for the Treasury Department to set rules this month guiding how the production tax credit for clean hydrogen (also known as the 45V hydrogen tax credit) within the IRA will be interpreted. But before it does drop, they had some ideas on what the guidance should look like.
During a panel discussion hosted by Resources for the Future yesterday, groups within the hydrogen space advocated for what they believe should be the guardrails set in place to best support the emerging industry while cutting carbon emissions. But at the core of the debate was how strict the Treasury department should be with its requirements for companies to qualify for the credit itself, and how the emissions accounting system the Treasury is tasked with designing should look like.
The issue with requirements: “Too tight and … we risk forcing all projects behind the meter and not getting the outcomes that we want,” said Nathan Iyer, a senior associate at the Rocky Mountain Institute. “Too loose, the IRS would be unable to distinguish between the lowest and the highest carbon hydrogen in the country, and risk poisoning the well or at least confusing all of the industries that rely on clean hydrogen.”
In other words, strict emissions accounting rules would help avoid increases in domestic carbon emissions, but more lenient requirements could encourage the faster deployment and progress of hydrogen electrolyzers.
Marty Durbin, the senior vice president for policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, argued for less “unnecessary restrictions” that could inhibit the growth of the hydrogen sector.
“There very well may be higher emissions at the front end of this, but when you know that the overall goal is we want to have an economy in place that can drive emissions down, especially in these hard to abate sectors, that’s what we need to be focused on,” Durbin said. “So we really believe it’s critical that we have flexible credit rules that will help to grow the demand for hydrogen sooner.”
Many of the lines of division were brought over the issue of temporal matching, which is a prominent proposal from environmental groups that asks the Treasury to adopt strict emissions accounting rules requiring hydrogen producers to match their consumption of electricity from the grid with clean electricity production on an hourly basis versus annual, with some panelists arguing for its aggressive adoption versus easing into the system.
And on the issue of additionality: And while the majority of the panel agreed on a proposed additionality requirement – the concept that only new renewable energy projects can be used to power electrolysers to produce green hydrogen – others within the space pushed back against the idea.
“The one thing that was kind of missing in that whole discussion was the assumption that additionality was basically a good thing,” said Frank Wolak, president and CEO of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association, who was not a part of Monday’s panel discussion. “But when you really look at the duration of the uncertainty for when additionality might be ready, you could be five or six years or more into a 10 year credit. … It means that the industry is really in a holding pattern for a number of years.”
ANOTHER SAFETY PROBLEM WITH TESLA: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is looking into a dozen complaints about the loss of steering control or loss of power steering within Tesla vehicles.
As reported by the Associated Press, the probe covers an estimated 280,000 vehicles, and focuses on the 2023 Models 3 and Y of electric vehicles. Five drivers alleged in complaints that they couldn’t steer the vehicles at all, while seven more cited a loss of power steering that required increased steering effort. There was one report of a crash, but no complaints of any injuries.
The probe is at least the fifth started by the agency to look into Tesla in the last three years.
PIPELINE COMPANIES TO PAY $12.5 MILLION IN OIL SPILL PENALTIES, EPA SAYS: Two oil pipeline operators agreed this week to pay a $12.5 million civil penalty to resolve lawsuits related to oil spills on its projects in Montana and North Dakota, according to the EPA.
Both the Belle Fourche Pipeline Company and Bridger Pipeline LLC were accused of violating the Clean Water Act and the Pipeline Safety Act in two separate oil spills in 2015 and 2016, spilling water into the Yellowstone River and in North Dakota, according to the EPA.
Along with the penalties, both companies will be required to implement new safety compliance measures, including adding new training for employees and additional control room operation requirements related to their water crossings and geotechnical evaluation programs.
PHOENIX ENDS 31-DAY HEAT STREAK—BARELY: Phoenix temperatures did not reach or exceed 110 degrees yesterday for the first time since June, ending a record-breaking 31-day streak of blistering-hot temperatures in the central Arizona town. (The previous record was 18 days, set in 1974.)
Residents did not feel too much relief, however, as temperatures still rose to a searing 108 degrees Fahrenheit, receding slightly after monsoon rains and thunderstorms passed through the region.
The break is expected to be short-lived: Temperatures are likely to climb later this week—with highs of 110 to 116 degrees expected by this weekend—and the National Weather Service warned that August could be even hotter than July. (Other areas, including Texas and South Florida, could also be in for another month of punishing heat, according to NWS.)
…MEANWHILE, COLORADO RIVER BASIN LEVELS HAVE PLUMMETED: Higher temperatures have also depleted water levels in the Colorado River Basin by trillions of gallons, according to a new study—a staggering level of water loss researchers attributed to human-caused climate change.
According to researchers from UCLA, water levels have dropped by 10 trillion gallons between 2000 and 2021 as a result of climate change—a 10.8% reduction that exceeds the total storage of Lake Mead. In fact, they said that, without this warming, water levels would not have fallen low enough for the federal government to declare its first-ever Tier 1 water shortage there in 2021—and, subsequently, the Tier 3 water shortage in January 2023.
“While we knew warming was having an impact on the Colorado Basin’s water availability, we were surprised to find how sensitive the basin is to warming compared to other major basins across the western U.S., and how high this sensitivity is in the relatively small area of the basin’s crucial snowpack regions,” said Benjamin Bass, a hydrologic modeler at UCLA and lead author of the study. “The fact that warming removed as much water from the basin as the size of Lake Mead itself during the recent megadrought is a wakeup call to the climate change impacts we are living today.” The Colorado River Basin is a key source of water in the southwestern U.S., supplying seven states and an estimated 40 million people.
FOSSIL FUEL BAN FOR BOSTON CITY BUILDINGS– Boston Mayor Michelle Wu signed an executive order yesterday banning the use of fossil fuels in new construction projects and major renovations of city buildings, according to the Boston Herald.
The order is a part of the mayor’s larger effort to implement a similar ban on new residential buildings – a plan that has drawn criticism from certain real-estate groups.
The city buildings will be constructed and renovated in a way that doesn’t allow for the use of fossil fuels like coal, oil, or natural gas in heating and cooling, hot water and cooking operations. Municipal emissions make up 2.3% of all of Boston’s carbon emissions, and more than 70% of the city’s emissions come from buildings, according to Wu’s office.
The order exempts new projects that are currently in the procurement, design, or construction phase – but will apply to future capital projects. Read more on that here.
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