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ETHANOL INDUSTRY TOASTS TRUMP AS OIL INDUSTRY READIES TO SUE HIM: The ethanol industry’s top lobbyist toasted President Trump’s decision to nominate Andrew Wheeler to head the Environmental Protection Agency, while the oil industry is vowing to sue the administration over Trump’s plan to boost the amount of the corn alcohol-based fuel in gasoline.

Renewable Fuels Association senior strategic adviser Bob Dinneen congratulated EPA acting administrator Wheeler on Twitter. “You have well earned the honor of removing ‘Acting’ from your title,” Dinneen added. “I’m sure you will sail through confirmation and be a tremendous Administrator.”

Promises made, promises kept: Dinneen favors Wheeler because of his promise to move ahead on Trump’s plan to allow the year-round sale of 15-percent ethanol fuels in gasoline. Right now, EPA fuel volatility restrictions confine ethanol levels to just 10-percent fuel blends that make up most of the U.S.’s gasoline.

The oil industry, on the other hand, doesn’t like Trump’s plan because of its potential to make them liable for millions of dollars in damages to car engines. The oil industry, represented by the American Petroleum Institute, says 15-percent ethanol fuels would harm engines and set their industry up for a fall if they are suddenly made liable for the damages.

Frank Macchiarola, API’s downstream director, told reporters on a call Monday morning that the oil industry is ready to use all legal options available to it to make sure Trump’s plan does not move forward at the EPA.

Macchiarola thinks Wheeler is a “top-notch public servant,” but that doesn’t make the E15 plan “a forward looking energy strategy.” He explained on the call that the EPA’s ethanol mandate and Renewable Fuel Standard program mean less for the nation’s energy security than a decade ago when Congress dramatically expanded the EPA program.

Now the U.S. is the largest oil producer in the world, but the EPA renewable fuel program “threatens” that standing if significant changes are not made, said Macchiarola.

The oil group is reiterating its desire for Wheeler to dial back the renewable fuel program’s biofuel blending targets to reduce the burden the program places on the industry, as the agency is expected to finalize the 2019 biofuel targets by the end of the month.

Welcome to Daily on Energy, compiled 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.  

DEMOCRATS SEEK ARCTIC OIL DRILLING REPEAL TO MARK TAX BILL’S ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY: Democrats are planning to mark the one-year anniversary of Trump’s tax bill by introducing bicameral legislation that repeals the provision opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling, the Washington Examiner has learned.

Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, a climate change stalwart on the environment committee, is leading the ANWR repeal bill effort in the higher chamber, congressional aides confirmed.

The bill would repeal a provision in the GOP tax bill passed last December to open the wildlife refuge in Alaska to lease sales for oil and natural gas drilling after a 40-year ban.

Conservation and indigenous peoples’ groups have been lobbying the House and Senate for the past week to gain as many supporters for the bill as possible.

“We’re asking the [representatives] to do what they can to slow down the process to prevent any development in the Arctic refuge,” said Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, representing the northernmost Indian tribe located in Alaska, who has been lobbying on Capitol Hill all week in the wake of the midterm Democratic House victory.

She was joined by a delegation of groups from Alaska pushing for the repeal legislation or another bill to block the administration’s efforts to begin surveying and drilling in the refuge.

Read more from John’s story.

DEFIANT IN DEFEAT, CARLOS CURBELO SAYS CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIVISM WILL ONLY HELP GOP: Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., defiant after losing his seat in Congress, is taking aim at a segment of the Republican Party that argues his defeat proves that GOP lawmakers cannot win by running on a platform to combat climate change.

Curbelo, in an interview Friday in his Washington, D.C. office, expressed anger at conservative groups, such as Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform and the Heartland Institute, that have cited his loss as proof of the political unpopularity of a carbon tax.

“Those are fraudulent claims,” Curbelo said. “Those groups are as disingenuous and dishonest and corrosive to our politics as groups on the Left.”

Climate activism did not sink Curbelo: In his last act, Curbelo unveiled a carbon tax bill just months before Election Day, a move that quieted critics on his Left who questioned the credentials and purity of Republicans who say they are concerned about climate change, and inflamed opponents on the Right who viewed the move as damaging to his political standing in the GOP conference.

Curbelo says he believes his aggressive environmental stance helped him stay close to Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in a district antipathetic to Trump, a climate change skeptic.

“The environment was a winning issue for me,” said Curbelo. “This issue only helped me politically.”

Curbelo’s continued push for a carbon tax: In the interview, he vowed to devote a substantial portion of his life as a private citizen to promoting a carbon tax, which he sees as the “only real solution” to climate change, although he would not detail his specific plans, wanting to wait until after he leaves Congress.

Read more of Josh’s interview with Curbelo here.

TRUMP, FINLAND’S PRESIDENT AT ODDS OVER ‘RAKING’ TO HELP WILDFIRES: Trump during a visit to Northern California this weekend at the site of the state’s deadliest ever wildfire offered a new theory about how to prevent future blazes.

He said Finnish President Sauli Niinisto told him that raking leaves in his country was a form of forest management that helped prevent fires.

Finnish president dispute’s Trump: But Niinistö had a different recollection about the conversation about forest management on Nov. 11 while they were both in Paris.

“I mentioned [to] him that Finland is a land covered by forests and we also have a good monitoring system and network,” Niinisto told Ilta-Sanomat, the country’s second-largest newspaper, on Sunday. “We take care of our forests.”

Niinisto said they talked about California’s blazes, as well as how how Finland — a country of 5.5 million — uses a special surveillance system to monitor its forest. Forests cover more than 70 percent of Finland’s 338,000 square kilometers.

Trump spins a new theory: “You look at other countries where they do it differently, and it’s a whole different story,” Trump told reporters in Northern California on Saturday, standing alongside Gov. Jerry Brown and Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom in Paradise.

“And they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things, and they don’t have any problem. And when it is, it’s a very small problem. So I know everybody’s looking at that to that end. And it’s going to work out, it’s going to work out well,” Trump added.

The Camp Fire in Northern California has killed at least 76 people as of Sunday and left nearly 1,300 more missing. The deadliest in the state’s history, it is only 55 percent contained after burning more than 230 square miles and destroying nearly 10,000 homes. Fire have also devastated parts of Southern California.

President’s views on climate haven’t changed: Asked by reporters whether his visit changed his mind on climate change, which have created hotter and drier wildfire conditions, Trump said there were a “lot of factors” to blame.

“No. No. I have a strong opinion: I want great climate. We’re going to have that and we’re going to have forests that are very safe,” he said.

TRUMP SAYS HE WILL NOMINATE ANDREW WHEELER TO CONTINUE LEADING EPA: Trump said on Friday that he will nominate Andrew Wheeler to be the next administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Wheeler has been serving as acting administrator since July after former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt resigned from the post amid numerous scandals over his misuse of federal funds.

Wheeler eager to carry on: Wheeler told Josh on Friday that he is “humbled and grateful” that Trump intends to nominate him on a permanent basis. “I look forward to continuing to carry out his agenda and the mission of our agency,” he said.

The former energy lobbyist and Republican congressional staffer has more diligently carried on the EPA’s de-regulatory agenda, without the drama of Pruitt.

Democrats want Wheeler to testify: But Sen. Tom Carper, the top Democrat of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called on Wheeler to come before his panel to prove he has improved transparency and morale at the agency as promised.

“If @POTUS intends to nominate Wheeler to be @EPA Administrator, then he must come before the Environment and Public Works Committee so that we can look at his record as Acting Administrator objectively to see if any improvements have been made at the agency since he took the helm,” Carper said in a Twitter post.

GOVERNORS URGE CONGRESS TO PASS CARBON CAPTURE BILL: A bipartisan group of five governors wrote congressional leaders on Monday to pass a bill, advanced in May by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, that would require the government to research carbon capture and utilization technologies that would trap carbon from industrial facilities and reuse it for commercial products. The legislation also would set up a program to incentivize the creation of technologies that can suck carbon directly out of the air.

That bill has wide-ranging sponsorship, including that of Sens. John Barrasso, the chairman of the Public Works Committee from the coal state of Wyoming, and Carper.

“Passage of the USE IT Act furthers the advancement of new, critical technologies that will help develop industries, jobs and markets by transforming carbon emissions into an economic resource,” the governors wrote.

The governors on the letter are Matt Mead of Wyoming, Steve Bullock of Montana, Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, Gary Herbert of Utah, and Jeff Colyer of Kansas.

COLORADO TO ADOPT ‘CLEAN CAR’ STANDARDS, JOINING COALITION OF STATES: Colorado on Friday became the latest state to join a coalition that is implementing tough fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles, taking advantage of a waiver that California has, and that others can follow, allowing it to set fuel pollution rules that are tougher than national standards.

The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission voted unanimously Friday to adopt the more stringent rules, projecting they will reduce climate pollution by nearly two million metric tons annually in 2030, and by four-and-a-half million metric tons annually in 2040.

States fight with Trump over car rules: The Trump administration has proposed weakening fuel efficiency standards imposed by the Obama administration, and is also considering revoking the California’s waiver.

Colorado was not among the 18 states that sued the EPA in May for rejecting Obama’s car rules.

But Colorado’s Attorney General-elect Phil Weiser, a Democrat, recently told Josh in an interview that Trump’s proposed rollback is “unlawful” and said he would defend Colorado’s right to set its efficiency rules.

RUNDOWN

Washington Post ‘The man behind the curtain’: Interior’s No. 2 helps drive Trump’s agenda

Reuters U.S. shale firms offer $100 million to aid Texas, New Mexico

Bloomberg Russia’s wait-and-see stance on OPEC+ cuts shows gap with Saudis

Greentech Media Why is the Texas market so tough for energy storage?

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