Daily on Energy: Shah under fire from Republicans

During a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing Thursday on the DOE’s grant and loan process through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, ranking member John Barrasso of Wyoming raised questions about the influence trade group Cleantech Leaders Roundtable has over the loan program, claiming that the company acts as a “gatekeeper” for companies requesting financial assistance and grants “special access” to Shah. He cited a report from the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication.

Shah founded the Cleantech Leaders Roundtable as a private networking group of climate technology leaders six years ago. He was appointed by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to lead the loan program in March 2021.

During the hearing, Barrasso questioned whether or not Shah would commit to refraining from associating with his previous trade association for the rest of his tenure at the DOE – to which Shah stated that he had “no role to play whatsoever in choosing who gets a loan.” Instead, he said, lending decisions have been delegated to a portfolio risk management group and federal staff.

“My job is to get people to take the extraordinary step of spending a lot of time and effort to participate in the loan programs office and ask us for a loan so that we can evaluate it,” Shah said.

Still, Senate Energy Republicans, such as Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, further interrogated Shah on potential conflicts of interest from attending conferences where attendees, who could be interested in a DOE loan, pay to hear the official speak.

“You’re going to events where people are paying to see you, who want money from the government,” Hawley said. “You’re the director of the loan program. You think that that’s okay? You don’t see a conflict of interest?”

A notable quotable: “I’m more accessible than a ham sandwich,” Shah said in response to the claims. Citing conferences such as RE+, he said: “I go to lots of places; wherever American innovators and entrepreneurs need to meet me so that they can be convinced that this country wants them to onshore and reshore their technology here in this country, I’m willing to talk to them.”

For context: It’s normal for administration officials to attend trade conferences and speak at relevant panel discussions, whether it’s public or private. One example is RE+, a clean energy conference where more than 40,000 attendees flock annually to talk about renewable energy.

Related: Many of these claims were made in a letter from Barasso and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, sent out Wednesday.

They allege that collaboration between the DOE office and Shah’s former trade association for a recent “invitation-only” clean energy conference could raise conflicts of interest, where “access to DOE loans could be potentially influenced by affiliations with Cleantech Leaders Roundtable.” The pair also cited the recent approval of a $3 billion loan to solar company Sunnova, whose board of directors shares one member with Cleantech Leaders Roundtable – Anne Slaughter Andrew. Andrew is a board director and investor at the trade association, and is also a board director at Sunnova.

The pair of lawmakers are demanding Shah provide answers about his current relationship with the trade association, any measures put in place to ensure that companies do not receive preferential treatment in the loan approval process, and any correspondence between the agency and the trade group. Read the letter here. 

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.

FED CHAIRMAN SPEECH DISRUPTED BY CLIMATE PROTESTERS: “Off fossil finance, Jay, off fossil finance,” climate protesters chanted today at the Economic Club of New York as they disrupted a speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome “Jay” Powell.

The interruption lasted a few minutes before organizers were able to clear the room and allow Powell to proceed with his remarks on monetary policy. Read more from the Examiner’s Zach Halaschak here.

SANCTIONS EASED FOR VENEZUELA: The United States has eased several sanctions against Venezuela after President Nicolas Maduro and his opposition came to an agreement on guidelines before the country’s next presidential election that the U.S. considered “democratic developments.”

As our Conrad Hoyt reports, the Treasury announced it softened sanctions on oil, gas, and gold, “as well as removing the ban on secondary trading.” The department said it is “prepared to amend or revoke authorizations at any time, should representatives of Maduro fail to follow through on their commitments.”

Maduro has been president of Venezuela since 2013. He has been called a dictator and tyrant for his efforts to remain in power, which allegedly include using violent force to quell opponents, stealing an election, and corruptly keeping his allies in prominent positions.

The Treasury issued a six-month general license “temporarily authorizing transactions involving the oil and gas sector in Venezuela,” and it will be renewed if Maduro’s government follows the electoral road map agreed upon, “as well as other commitments with respect to those who are wrongfully detained.”

At least one Democrat isn’t happy with the move: Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. During today’s Senate Energy hearing, the committee chairman briefly expressed his concerns on the Biden administration’s move to lift the sanctions on Venezuela, finding fault with the administration turning to another country that’s considered “one of the world’s dirtiest energy producers and an oppressor of its own people,” instead of drilling domestically. He mentioned that the White House was aware of his concerns.

“I understand that the administration believes this will encourage Venezuela to make democratic reforms, that has been tried, and we’ve failed before. It makes no sense at all to reward bad actors before they actually take the action you want. We tried that with Iran, and now here we are with Venezuela,” he said.

Read the announcement here.

$3.5B TO STRENGTHEN GRIDS AND PROTECT AGAINST BLACKOUTS: The Biden administration announced nearly $3.5 billion in funding yesterday to strengthen U.S. power grids in a bid to boost reliability and avoid capacity shortfalls or blackouts during extreme weather events.

The funding, created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, is the largest-ever direct investment in U.S. critical grid infrastructure, White House officials said. It will fund 58 separate projects across 44 U.S. states, and ultimately bring online more than 35 GW of renewable energy.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, White House Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator Mitch Landrieu stressed the importance of investing in the U.S. grid at a time when high-heat events and winter storms have put millions at risk for rolling blackouts or extended outages, including 2021 Winter Storm Uri, and the 2020 rolling blackouts in California.

The funds are managed by DOE’s GRIP program, which seeks to modernize the U.S. power grid and mitigate the effects of natural disasters and extreme weather events worsened by climate change.

Its goals include adding more renewable energy sources onto the grids and increasing reliability by deploying “innovative” approaches to electricity transmission, storage, and distribution, in line with the administration’s clean energy and emissions reduction targets. Read more from Breanne here.

SENATE DEMOCRATS DIVIDED ON HYDROGEN: Ten Senate Democrats are asking the Biden administration not to include stringent rules guiding the use of clean hydrogen tax credits that the Treasury Department is expected to publish by the end of the year, Reuters reports.

In the letter – which the senators planned to send White House Advisor John Podesta, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm – they ask the officials to make the Treasury guidance flexible, and allow for projects fueled by energy sources such as gas, hydroelectricity, and nuclear to be eligible for the tax credits.

The group, led by Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, warned that an approach favored by other Democratic lawmakers and environmental groups could create “overly complex eligibility criteria” that would hamper the hubs and the growth of the nascent industry.

Other lawmakers that signed the letter: Sens. Manchin, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Dick Durbin of Illinois.

The latest effort is at odds with other Democratic lawmakers, who have pressed the Treasury to place strict guardrails on the tax credits and limit eligibility to hydrogen producers that use new sources of clean electricity instead of tapping into power that uses more traditional forms of energy. Read more about it here. 

WESTERMAN GETS A SPEAKER VOTE: House Natural Resources Committee Chair Bruce Westerman was on the ballot for the House speakership on Wednesday – with a singular vote from GOP Rep. Peter Stauber, a fellow committee member.

Westerman, who voted for GOP Rep. Jim Jordan to be speaker both on Tuesday and Wednesday’s ballots, said that he was “humbled that Pete” would vote for him. But it’s not just Stauber who had floated the idea – other members have been coming up to the committee chair to suggest him running for the speakership.

But when asked if he would try to assume the gavel, Westerman sidestepped the question.

“I want to get a plan in place so that this place can operate,” he told the Washington Examiner in a brief interview. When asked if that plan could include himself, he said “it could,” but, “it could include a lot of other people.”

Westerman wouldn’t confirm who he voted for during the internal conference vote for speaker last week, but gave the indication that if Majority Leader Steve Scalise had not pulled out of the race and headed for a floor vote instead, he would “100% voted for Scalise, and I very well may have voted for him in the conference.” Still, he stressed the importance of unity within the conference.

The chances of a House Natural Resources speaker: Slim to none. One vote is very far off from the 217 needed for a candidate to claim the gavel. But with Jordan set to announce that he will not seek a Thursday ballot in the speaker race and instead support a plan to let Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry run the House temporarily, the candidate Republicans will ultimately coalesce around remains to be seen.

FIRST MAJOR SOLAR PANEL FACTORY POST-IRA: Qcells said that it had finished an expansion of its Dalton, Georgia, solar panel factory yesterday. It said it was the first such completion of a solar factory following the enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act, and credited the law for the increase in production.

“The Inflation Reduction Act and the efforts of Georgia’s economic development team helped make these ambitious plans possible,” CEO Justin Lee said in a press release.

The plant will manufacture nearly 30,000 solar panels per day.

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