MURKOWSKI COMMITTED TO BIPARTISAN ENERGY BILL: Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski said Thursday morning that she is committed to pushing a bipartisan comprehensive energy bill.

The Alaska Republican made the statement at a hearing to address rural energy challenges, which will be addressed in the comprehensive bill.

“Sen. [Maria] Cantwell and I are committed, still, to advancing this,” Murkowski said, referring to the top Democrat on the committee. “We’ve worked hard on this as a committee, and those provisions will benefit our remote communities.”

The bill stalled in the last Congress in conference committee, as House members thought they could get a better bill under Trump.

TRUMP, ABE PLEDGE TO BUILD ‘CLEAN’ INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS: President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe found room to talk about the environment amid all the discussion about North Korea, pledging that every project the two countries work on must be “clean” and take into consideration the environment.  

• Collaboration must be ‘clean’: “President Trump and Prime Minister Abe affirmed that infrastructure projects in the Indo-Pacific should  be market-based, clean and transparent, responsibly financed, and feature open and fair access, social and environmental considerations, and standards of good governance,” according to a joint statement from Trump and Abe late Wednesday after their two-day summit concluded in Mar-a-Lago.

• Climate caveat? The statement was not specific, but is it fair to say that “environmental considerations” could include climate change? Japan, after all, is committed to the Paris climate change agreement, but is also a key importer of U.S. natural gas. The infrastructure projects the two countries have a shared interest in include liquefied natural gas terminals.

• Japan’s U.S. LNG connection: The first LNG export facility on the East Coast at Cove Point in Maryland is owned partly by a joint venture between Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo and Tokyo Gas Co Ltd. Cove Point is the second LNG export facility in the continental U.S.

• First big shipment is Japan’s: The first shipment, holding natural gas from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale fields, left Dominion’s Cove Point on Sunday. Sumitomo said some of the LNG is bound for Tokyo Gas and some will go to the Kansai Electric Power Co Inc.

• Ghost of Fukushima haunts first cargo: Kansai had been primarily reliant on nuclear power plants until the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster moved the country to rely instead on natural gas and other fossil fuels.

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INTERIOR MOVES TO BEGIN ANWR LEASING: The Trump administration on Friday will begin the process of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and natural gas leasing.

The Interior Department will publish a notice in the Federal Register of its intent to do a draft environmental impact statement for energy leasing in the refuge, known as ANWR.

The agency will accept public comment for 60 days from Friday.

• Fast track: Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said last month that the Interior Department could have the first lease sale to oil and gas drillers in 2019.

Joe Balash, Interior’s assistant secretary for Land and Minerals Management, told local media in Alaska last month he hopesl the agency can meet that goal.

• Slow down: Conservation groups condemned Interior’s first formal step to begin drilling.

“The Department of the Interior is pursuing an irresponsibly aggressive timeline for Arctic Refuge drilling that reflects the Trump administration’s eagerness to turn over America’s public lands to private industry for development,” said Jamie Williams, the president of the Wilderness Society. “By pushing for a lease sale next year,  the administration is admitting that they have no intention of seriously evaluating the negative impacts of oil development on wildlife and these wild lands, which science tells us are significant.

FERC KICKS OFF REVIEW OF PIPELINE POLICY: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday formally began a review of its 1999 policy for approving pipeline projects.

The commission issued a draft notice of inquiry, starting a 60-day public comment period.

FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre, a Republican, announced in December his intent to initiate a review of the pipeline policy, as the agency evaluates how to best manage the transport of bountiful shale natural gas to market, while balancing environmental and climate change concerns.

McIntyre said the Thursday action does not prejudge the outcome of the review, and he is open-minded to changes on how the committee evaluates the need for a project as well as landowner concerns.

ANTI-ETHANOL PUNDITS SHOW IOWA USES LESS OF ITS OWN PRODUCT: A study showing that U.S. ethanol leader Iowa doesn’t use a lot of its own corn-based fuel is exciting some in the anti-ethanol crowd in Washington.

“Iowa — the number one ethanol producer and corn grower in the United States — reaps arguably the greatest benefits from the Renewable Fuel Standard program, but on average, there is less ethanol in the motor fuels that Iowans buy [at their local retailers] than what consumers buy in the rest of the country as a whole,” a summary of the new study reads.

The study was put out by Smarter Fuel Future, a group opposed to the RFS’ ethanol mandate. A study from an advocacy group typically undermines a study’s credibility, but it was based on recent fuel demand data taken from Iowa’s retail monitoring agency.

It wouldn’t be that big a deal if the two Iowa senators, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, leading the charge to save the ethanol mandate hadn’t been successful in gaining the president’s support to lift federal restraints to blend more ethanol in the nation’s gasoline supply.

• Iowans prefer gasoline without ethanol: “Iowans bought more than 200 million gallons of ethanol-free E0 fuel in 2016,” the study showed. “That’s more E0 than what EPA projects the entire country will be able to buy in the near future while still satisfying growing annual biofuel obligations under the RFS. In fact, more E0 is sold in Iowa than [15 percent ethanol blends] and all flex fuels combined.”

Trump vowed last week that he will lift restrictions so that 15-percent blends can be sold nationwide all year. Currently, the EPA restricts E15 use to certain times of the year.

• Trying to gin up bad PR: “This is a pretty damning document for the ethanol industry,” read an email from conservative PR maven Liz Mair hyping the study to the Washington Examiner.

• Oh, the ‘irony’ of it all: “Yet Iowa members of Congress are continuing to refuse to even hear of changes to the RFS … somewhat ironic,” Mair added.

Ethanol defenders and trade groups had little to say about the study.

FARM BILL BAD FOR ENDANGERED SPECIES: Environmentalists and Democrats are blasting riders that would undermine endangered species protections as part of the five-year Farm Bill that was advanced by the House Agriculture Committee Wednesday.

“This isn’t a farm bill, it’s a hyper-partisan, pollute-at-will bill and it should be stopped before taking root,” said environmental lawyers with the group EarthJustice.

The bill, authored by committee Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas, includes riders that critics said would “gut key provisions” of or create exemptions from the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, and the Pesticide Registration Improvement Enhancement Act of 2017.

BUT LIVESTOCK PRODUCERS LIKE THE FARM BILL: “We want to thank Chairman Mike Conaway and the other members of the House Agriculture Committee who have worked so hard to craft this Farm Bill and to ensure that it protects the priorities of America’s cattle producers,” National Cattlemen’s Beef Association President Kevin Kester said.

• Priorities: The group is mostly concerned with access to foreign markets, research, and protecting livestock from disease.

• Environment program also key: But Kester also is concerned with environmental quality, and he pledged to work with the House to ensure the Environmental Quality Incentives Program gets fully funded. The federal program helps agricultural producers face market challenges while conserving natural resources like soil, water and air.”

GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FROM POWER PLANTS PLUNGE, EPA REPORT SAYS: Greenhouse gas emissions from power plants dropped 25 percent from 2005 to 2016, according to a report Wednesday from the Environmental Protection Agency.

U.S. emissions overall fell 2 percent to 6.5 billion metric tons in 2016 from 2015 and 11 percent from 2005 levels, according to the 2018 edition of the EPA’s “comprehensive annual report of greenhouse gas emissions.”

• ‘Confirms critics wrong’: The Trump administration said the lower emission levels show that Obama-era government regulations it is rolling back are not needed to reduce carbon pollution from the electricity sector.

“This report confirms the president’s critics are wrong again: one-size-fits-all regulations like the Clean Power Plan or misguided international agreements like the Paris Accord are not the solution,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said.

• Fact check: The data covers a time period during which Trump was not in office.

OIL DEMAND SURGING DESPITE PUSH FOR ELECTRIC CARS: Short-term oil demand is “still growing strong and will continue to do so through the end of 2020 … despite the market’s increasing focus on electric vehicles and the forecasted future plateau in oil demand,” according to a new study by the market analysis group IHS Markit.

Gasoline and diesel demand growth has averaged 1.2 million barrels per day over the last five years, according to the report.

• Return to the ‘golden age’: “Current global total liquids oil demand growth is at similar levels to what was recorded during the 2003 to 2007 commodity super-cycle, referred to as the ‘golden age‘ of refining. At present, current global total liquids oil demand is approximately 100 million barrels per day,” the report said.

MULVANEY TO INVESTIGATE PRUITT’S $43,000 SECURE PHONE BOOTH: White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said Wednesday that his office plans to investigate the $43,000 secure phone booth for Pruitt.

The Government Accountability Office declared Monday morning that the EPA violated the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act because it spent more than $5,000 on the phone booth without notifying Congress.

The GAO also said the EPA violated the Antideficiency Act, a measure prohibiting federal agencies from spending government funds in advance or in excess of an appropriation.

• Unhappy place: “We take the antideficiency statute very, very seriously, and if they’ve been broken, we’ll follow the rules, we will enforce the law and we’ll do so in a transparent fashion,” Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, told lawmakers at a House Appropriations Committee hearing. “I’m not any happier about it than you are. I’m not interested in covering for anybody else.”

PRUITT ‘HAS LOST FAITH OF PUBLIC’ AND MUST RESIGN, DEMOCRATS SAY: Nearly 170 House and Senate Democrats have signed a resolution calling for Pruitt to resign in the wake of spending and personnel scandals that have dogged him for weeks.

The resolution, signed by 38 Democratic senators, hits Pruitt for misusing taxpayer dollars while cutting the EPA’s budget and staff needed for enforcement, research and implementation efforts. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucuses with the Democrats, also signed the resolution. In the House, 131 Democrats signed a companion resolution.

• ‘Tarnishing’ the EPA: “Administrator Pruitt has lost the faith of the public through his continued undermining of basic ethics, particularly the ethics of impartiality (such as by renting a below-market priced room in a condominium owned by an energy lobbyist with clients who had interests that are regulated by the agency) and is tarnishing the reputation of serving in public office at the agency,” the resolution said.

• Scorecard: A few Republicans in Congress have said Pruitt should resign, though none signed on to the resolution.

PUERTO RICO SUFFERS TOTAL POWER OUTAGE: Puerto Rico suffered from an island-wide blackout Wednesday, as the fragile power grid struggles to return to full capacity after Hurricane Maria wiped out an already crippled energy system.

The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, the island’s state-run bankrupt utility known as PREPA, said it could up to 36 hours to restore power.

PREPA said 1.1 million customers had power as of 9 a.m. Thursday. The island has 1.47 million electrical customers.

• The cause: Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello said Wednesday night that the outage happened because a subcontractor, D. Grimm Inc., damaged a power line while removing a collapsed tower with an excavator.

He said the contract with the subcontractor would be canceled.

“This incident denotes the need to transform PREPA into a cutting-edge, modern and robust corporation,” Rossello said.

TRUMP’S NASA NOMINEE EXPECTED TO GET A CONFIRMATION VOTE THURSDAY: Trump’s pick to lead NASA just barely advanced in the Senate Wednesday, after it was stuck in a 49-49 tie that Vice President Mike Pence could not have broken because he’s out of town.

The Senate voted 50-48 to end debate on the nomination of former Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., setting up a final confirmation vote, likely Thursday.

• Senate floor drama: The vote had been stuck in a 49-49 tie, after Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., voted against Bridenstine.

Two senators were out, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., which left just 98 senators voting. Pence, who could have broken the tie, was in Florida with Trump.

After several minutes, however, Flake changed his vote, allowing the nominee to advance.

• Climate tie: Democrats, meanwhile, criticize Bridenstine for being dismissive of climate change science.

NASA is one of the top agencies for studying the climate.

BANKRUPT SOLAR PANEL-MAKER THAT PUSHED TRUMP TARIFFS IS BOUGHT OUT: SunPower announced Wednesday that it is buying panel-maker SolarWorld, a bankrupt company that successfully petitioned the Trump administration to impose tariffs on imported solar panels.

SunPower said if the deal passes regulatory review, the company will become the country’s largest panel manufacturer.

• Taking credit: The White House said Wednesday that the SunPower-SolarWorld deal shows tariffs are working. “This is great news for the hundreds of Americans working at SolarWorld’s factory in Oregon and is further proof that the president’s trade policies are bringing investment back to the United States,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters told Reuters.

RUNDOWN

Bloomberg Trump may invoke Cold War era defense act to boost coal plants

New York Times Total, with energy industry in flux, makes $1.7 billion bet on a utility

Reuters Exxon faces setback in Iraq as oil and water mix

ABC News Scott Pruitt’s Morocco trip calendar draws blanks

Los Angeles Times EPA embraces an odd argument against fuel economy: It will kill people

CNBC China is getting better at fracking, the technology that sparked the U.S. natural gas boom

Wall Street Journal Iceland takes hard look at tech boom sparked by its cheap, bountiful power