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WHITE HOUSE AIMS TO BOOST ‘ENERGY DOMINANCE’ AT FERC WITH NEW CLIMATE GUIDANCE: A new White House draft guidance is aimed at speeding up the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s natural gas pipeline approval process by helping the commission’s Republican leadership ignore greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews.
The new draft guidance issued Friday applies to all federal agencies, but its application to FERC’s infrastructure program, seen as key to the Trump energy dominance agenda, is most obvious because of the debate between the agency’s Republican and Democratic members over the need to weigh greenhouse gases before approving projects.
Agencies preparing environmental analyses “need not give greater consideration to potential effects from GHG emissions than to other potential effects on the human environment,” the guidance reads.
The White House Council on Environmental Quality’s draft guidance would give any agency the discretion to ignore the indirect effects of greenhouse gas emissions of a given project, such as a pipeline, and provide the agency with a rationale to expedite projects.
The guidance explains that the National Environmental Policy Act, the law that requires environmental reviews, provides what the White House refers to as the “rule of reason,” which it says justifies an agency’s decision to limit the scope of environmental reviews.
Indirect emissions would include natural gas after it has been shipped downstream and used in a power plant, for example. The guidance seeks to clarify that agencies need only focus on the “direct” environmental effects of the project itself without weighing the after effects on climate change.
FERC’s Republican majority: The guidance comes as FERC Republicans look to have a 2-1 majority after August, with Democrat Cheryl LaFleur stepping down after 9 years at the commission.
LaFleur has concurred with Republican Chairman Neil Chatterjee in approving FERC’s more recent pipeline decisions to deliver much-needed natural gas to the Northeast. But she has admonished the chairman for refusing to calculate the downstream emissions of the projects, which she said would be easily done using modeling provided by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Democrats get a little White House wiggle room: The guidance does say that an agency should calculate emissions if possible, and only if the emissions from the project are thought to be substantial.
“Agencies should attempt to quantify a proposed action’s projected direct and reasonably foreseeable indirect GHG emissions when the amount of those emissions is substantial enough to warrant quantification, and when it is practicable to quantify them using available data and GHG quantification tools,” the draft guidance reads.
LaFleur’s colleague, Richard Glick, who will be the sole Democrat on the commission beginning in September, will likely continue to oppose the pipeline projects as he has dissented against most of the majority’s approvals in the past for not addressing climate impacts.
Democratic pushback on Capitol Hill: Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, blasted the guidance for failing to address the effects of climate change.
Carper also said the guidance fails to provide the required 90-day comment period and should be immediately extended.
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TRUMP EPA SNUBS CARBON CAPTURE WITH ACE RULE FOR COAL PLANTS: With the finalization of the Affordable Clean Energy, or ACE, rule, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency is dismissing carbon capture and storage, a technology that is favored by many Republicans and is widely considered to be among the most effective at slashing emissions from coal plants.
“Based on the rejection of CCS, it’s hard to conclude the EPA leadership takes the job of regulating carbon pollution seriously,” Julio Friedmann, a researcher who studies carbon capture at the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, told Josh.
The status of carbon capture: The EPA argues carbon capture has not been “adequately demonstrated” on a commercial scale and is too expensive.
Friedmann disagrees with EPA’s contention. Carbon capture costs have dropped by more than 50% over the past 10 years, he said.
Eighteen large facilities around the world, including two at coal power plants, currently capture and store 30 million tons of carbon each year.
The crux of the issue: To be sure, including carbon capture as part of a rule that aims to bolster coal plant efficiency doesn’t make sense — it requires a chunk of the energy produced by the power plant to run the capture and storage process.
But the problem, critics say, is that the EPA is wrong to only accept efficiency improvements at coal plants, because it’s not enough. The U.N.’s climate panel says carbon capture is crucial to achieving the carbon-cutting goals of the Paris agreement.
Read more of Josh’s report here.
INSLEE PLEDGES TO CUT OIL AND GAS SUBSIDIES AND TO ‘END’ FRACKING: Democratic presidential candidate Jay Inslee introduced a plan Monday to end all federal government subsidies for fossil fuel companies and stop production of oil, gas, and coal on federal lands as a step toward banning it everywhere.
Inslee, the governor of Washington, projects that fossil fuel companies earn around $20 billion per year in subsidies.
Inslee’s plan would permanently ban all new leases of coal, oil, and gas on federal lands, including offshore. Other presidential candidates such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, have proposed the same thing.
There’s new stuff in here too: But Inslee’s plan is the most detailed and aggressive on combating fossil fuels, with a host of new pledges.
He would also “restrict” drilling and mining under existing leases by increasing the royalty rates companies pay to the government. He also pledges to work with Congress to enact an “outright national ban” on fracking. And he promised to restrict fossil fuel production on non-public lands by requiring production to occur a certain distance away from places such as schools, hospitals, and parks.
Inslee says he would move to stop fossil fuel exports as well. He wants to reinstate the crude oil export ban that President Barack Obama and Congress revoked in 2015. He’d set similar restrictions on the export of coal and liquefied natural gas.
INSLEE HOPS BACK ON THE CARBON TAX TRAIN, BUT DOESN’T CALL IT THAT: Inslee also appears to call for a carbon tax in his new climate plan, but a carbon tax under a different name.
He wants to install a ‘climate pollution fee’ that puts a price on greenhouse gas emissions, covering carbon and methane. Inslee had backed off carbon pricing as a climate solution after failing to pass a tax in his home state.
But in his new plan, Inslee says while pricing isn’t a “silver bullet,” it’s an “effective tool for both ensuring that polluters pay and for generating new revenue to address the harms caused by emissions.”
Carbon pricing, the favored climate change policy of economists, is considered to be politically toxic by some in the progressive Democratic base, who prefer mandates and direct spending.
Other candidates who have endorsed some form of a carbon tax include South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo.
TRUMP URGES CALLS ON ASIAN NATIONS TO PROTECT OIL PASSING THROUGH THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ: Trump urged Asian countries Monday to do more to protect oil passing through Strait of Hormuz.
“China gets 91% of its Oil from the Straight, Japan 62%, & many other countries likewise,” Trump said in a Twitter post, misspelling “Strait.”
“So why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation?” Trump said. “All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on what has always been a dangerous journey. We don’t even need to be there in that the U.S. has just become (by far) the largest producer of Energy anywhere in the world!”
Of the 60% of global oil that travels by sea, about 30% of that traverses through the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. has accused Iran of attacking two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz this month.
While the U.S. is depending less on oil imports from the Middle East, it still imported more than 32,000 barrels of oil from Gulf countries in March, according to the Energy Information Administration.
The Rundown
New York Times Blue states roll out aggressive climate strategies. Red states keep to the sidelines.
Politico Agriculture Department buries studies showing dangers of climate change
Bloomberg Cement produces more pollution than all the trucks in the world
Associated Press Arizona fire highlights challenges for energy storage
Calendar
TUESDAY | June 25
10 a.m., 366 Dirksen. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds hearing on implementation of the Land and Water Conservation Fund program.
10 a.m., 1324 Longworth. The House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources holds a legislative hearing titled, “Uranium Mining: Contamination and Criticality.”
Noon, U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. Carbon Utilization Research Council, the Global CCS Institute, and the Carbon Capture Coalition hold another in a series of Carbon Lunches.
WEDNESDAY | June 26
2 p.m., 1324 Longworth. House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife holds legislative hearings to consider bills to settle tribal water rights claims.
THURSDAY | June 27
10 a.m., 366 Dirksen. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to examine options for the interim and long-term storage of nuclear waste and to consider S. 1234, the Nuclear Waste Administration Act.
