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FERC CASTS DOUBT ON TRUMP’S COAL BAILOUT: Members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Tuesday morning criticized President Trump’s order for Energy Secretary Rick Perry to prevent the closing of financially struggling coal and nuclear plants.

Republican FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre dismissed claims by the Trump administration that the reliability of the power grid is facing immediate risk because of planned coal and nuclear plant closures in the next several years.

• ‘No immediate calamity’: “There is no immediate calamity or threat of the ongoing ability of the bulk power system to operate and serve needs,” McIntyre said.

Richard Glick, a Democratic FERC commissioner, rejected the Energy Department’s national security rationale for taking action.

“We cannot try to stop the natural evolution of this industry by a declaring national security emergency unless there is evidence such an emergency exists,” Glick said.

Most of the energy industry and policy experts have said potential action from Perry could undermine wholesale competitive power markets that produce lower costs for consumers. Expensive coal and nuclear plants are increasingly losing out to cheaper natural gas and renewables in competitive power auctions.

• Taking a step back: “FERC does not pick winners and losers in the market,” Robert Powelson, a Republican commissioner, said in comments before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in which all five commission members testified. “A hard and fast mandate on these markets could evaporate all the goodwill consumers have seen. To erode that would be a real step back in the bulk power system.”

Powelson said the unregulated competitive wholesale power markets are working “hyper efficiently right now,” and he called transitioning the markets about two decades ago a “phenomenal success story.”

• ‘Mortal conflict’: Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told the commissioners “I have my concerns” about Trump’s order to Perry, and said she sees no evidence that lost coal and nuclear power is weakening the electricity grid.

“It seems the retirements have not reached the point where the quality of electric service has been visibly compromised,” Murkowski said.

But Murkowski regretted that past FERC commissions have not paid enough attention to the long-term resilience of the power grid and how the changing energy mix may affect that.

“This is mortal conflict for some,” Murkowski said. “We haven’t seen decisive action, and as a result we have this vacuum.”

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.

REPUBLICANS PRESS TRUMP TO FINALIZE DEAL ON COOLANTS: A group of 13 prominent Republicans are urging President Trump to send a global climate agreement that would eliminate the use of some refrigerants to the Senate for ratification.

• Jobs at stake: “By sending this amendment to the Senate, you will help secure America’s place as the global leader in several manufacturing industries, and in turn give American workers an advantage against their competitors in the international marketplace,” according to the letter released Monday. It was sent earlier in the month.

• Keep cool: The Obama administration signed off on the agreement in Kigali, Rwanda, two years ago, right before the 2016 elections. The amendment to the 1982 Montreal Protocol would phase out the use of certain refrigerants used in air conditioning and other cooling systems because they exacerbate global warming.

• Climate agenda: Signing the deal was considered an important piece of the Obama administration climate change agenda after the Paris climate deal was signed in December 2015.

• Industry fears: Manufacturers have been concerned that Trump may roll back the Kigali deal similar to his decision on the Paris Agreement. As other countries move to other refrigerant chemicals, U.S. companies would become uncompetitive globally if the U.S. does not sign on.

• Who’s who: Senators signing the letter include John Kennedy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Marco Rubio of Florida, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Todd Young of Pennsylvania, John Boozman of Arkansas, and Johnny Isakson of Georgia.

REPUBLICAN GRASSROOT GROUPS JOIN PUSH FOR CARBON TAX ON CAPITOL HILL: Conservative members of the large umbrella group Citizens’ Climate Lobby will be descending on Capitol Hill Tuesday to lend their voices to a growing push for a bill that would place a fee on carbon emissions.

• Republican voices for carbon fee: The climate lobby’s “conservative caucus” leaders told John that grassroots support for a revenue-neutral carbon fee is growing among the Republican ranks ahead of the midterm elections. The lobbying push is to relay a message of support for legislation that would enact a carbon fee collected from polluters and then distributed to assist communities.

• Democratic bill: Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island has introduced a bill. But it’s not a fee-and-dividend program.Other conservative groups will be pitching an alternative carbon tax, or “fee,” as they prefer to call it, which would strike a “grand bargain” not to impose climate regulations if a carbon price is passed into law.

• Pushing a grand bargain: The group Students for Carbon Dividends will be joining lobbyists on the Hill Tuesday to discuss the fee-and-dividend proposal while also supporting the idea of a grand bargain.

The Citizens’ Climate Lobby points out in a letter it is distributing to lawmakers that major environmental policy was signed into law by Republican presidents. Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act establishing the Environmental Protection Agency, and Ronald Reagan negotiated the Montreal protocol to curb pollutants destroying the protective layer of ozone in the atmosphere.

More than 1,200 members of the lobbying group are expected to descend on Capitol Hill.

REPORT: NATURAL GAS, NOT TRUMP, WILL KILL THE PARIS DEAL: The Group of 20 industrialized nations are expected to invest more than $1.6 trillion in natural gas production, which will jeopardize the goals of the Paris Agreement.

That’s according to a report issued Tuesday by the anti-fossil fuel group Oil Change International that favors moving to 100 percent renewable energy.

• As the G20 meets: The report was released as G20 energy ministers gather in Argentina this week. The advocacy group says it has “debunked” most industrialized nations’ belief in the “Clean Gas Myth.”

• Bridge myth: “The concept of fossil gas as a ‘bridge fuel’ to a stable climate is a myth,” according to the group. “Emissions from existing gas fields, alongside existing oil and coal development, already exceed carbon budgets aligned with the Paris Agreement.”

• Coal vs. gas: The report finds that even if coal were phased out tomorrow, the natural gas and oil from already developed fields would break the global carbon budget need to keep the climate from rising 1.5 degrees over the next 20 years.  

• Global gas boom: The U.S., Russia, Australia, China, and Canada will be responsible for 75 percent of capital expenditures in natural gas production in G20 countries from 2018-2030, according to the report.

• South America eyes fracking: Argentina is vying to open its own shale deposits to produce natural gas, which the report says “risks undermining its commitment to the Paris Agreement and the work of the Energy Transitions Working Group during its G20 Presidency.”

ENERGY DEPARTMENT LOOKS AT EFFECT OF ‘UNCONSTRAINED’ NATURAL GAS EXPORTS: The Energy Department is expected to look at the impact of exporting liquefied natural gas at “unconstrained” high volumes.

The report will factor into decisions on approving licenses for exports to non-free-trade agreement countries.

• New look: Its look at unconstrained exports is a departure from previous reports that looked at specific amounts of fuel being exported. Natural gas exports are a key part of President Trump’s energy dominance agenda.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LOOKS OFFSHORE FOR WIND ENERGY BOOM: The Trump administration is “bullish” about offshore wind, working with governors in the Northeast to transform what was once a fringe and costly investment into America’s newest energy-producing industry.

• Zinke ‘very bullish’: “When the president said energy dominance, it was made without reference to a type of energy,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told Josh. “It was making sure as a country we are American energy first and that includes offshore wind. There is enormous opportunity, especially off the East Coast, for wind. I am very bullish.”

• Wind or drilling? On a recent tour of coastal states, Zinke found “magnitudes” more interest in offshore wind than oil and natural gas drilling.

• Industry ‘enthusiasm’: But the Atlantic Ocean is open for business for offshore wind, and developers are paying up, with the support of governors such as Republicans Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Larry Hogan of Maryland, and Democrats Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island.

“Market excitement is moving towards offshore wind,” Zinke said. “I haven’t seen this kind of enthusiasm from industry since the Bakken shale boom.”

As the cost of onshore renewables drops, offshore wind, which produces strong gusts for long periods of time, represents perhaps the biggest clean energy opportunity of them all.

Read more in this week’s Washington Examiner magazine.

HOW PRUITT COULD BE CRIMINALLY PROSECUTED FOR EPA SCANDALS: Opening a criminal investigation against Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt for several of his scandals would be doable, but tricky, legal experts say.

House Democrats on Friday requested the Justice Department and FBI open a criminal probe against Pruitt “for using taxpayer-funded resources for the personal gain of himself and his family.”

Pruitt is facing at least 12 federal investigations into his spending and management of the EPA, focused on whether he violated federal government ethics rules.

• ‘Upped the ante’: But to open a criminal case, prosecutors would need to meet a higher standard, legal experts say.

“Democrats have upped the ante,” Charles Tiefer, a law professor at the University of Baltimore who served as solicitor and deputy general counsel in the House, told Josh. “A prosecutor is just not going to say, ‘Did you use your office for private gain?’ He will have to say, ‘I need to look at your intent, I need to know who else you are working with, I need to see what their intent was, and are they willing to cooperate with me to make a criminal case.’”

• Legal theory: Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who focuses on government ethics law, said the accusations, if proven, show Pruitt has violated federal ethics rules.

“If the allegations are true, Administrator Pruitt has somewhat systematically engaged in improperly using government resources for his own private gain,” Clark said.

But it’s less clear if he could be criminally prosecuted for those misdeeds.

“In directing a subordinate to engage in private rather than public work, it’s conceivable that could be characterized as a theft of government services,” Clark said. “He is accused of directing a federal official to do personal favors for him on government time. That sounds to me like theft.”

SOLAR INDUSTRY SAYS TRUMP TARIFFS HAVING NO EFFECT ON GROWTH: The solar industry is touting its “resiliency” to the Trump administration’s tariffs on solar imports.

In a quarterly report released Tuesday, the Solar Energy Industries Association said that “in spite of the new tariffs” on solar imports, the market for solar panels increased by 2.5 gigawatts, representing annual growth of 13 percent.

One gigawatt of electricity is enough to power 700,000 homes.

• Opposed: The national solar industry group opposed Trump’s decision to impose the tariffs on solar panels and modules from overseas.

• 10 for 10: Solar accounted for 55 percent of all new U.S. electricity generators added first quarter of the year, the report said. It is the 10th quarter in a row that the solar industry has added more than two gigawatts of photovoltaic panels.

HOUSE DEMOCRATS URGE HEARING ON INTERIOR DEPARTMENT WORKPLACE HARASSMENT: The entire Democratic caucus of the House Natural Resources Committee on Monday urged committee Chairman Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, to hold a hearing on harassment in the Interior Department.

The Democrats say they are encouraged by the “zero tolerance” policy touted by Zinke, but they are concerned about other policy moves and personnel decisions that they say harm the workplace environment.

• ‘Inclusive workforce’: “Oversight can help ensure that Secretary Zinke and his leadership team recognize and promote the importance of a diverse, inclusive workforce so that anti-harassment efforts are fully supported,” the Democrats wrote in a letter to Zinke.

The letter cites a January report from the Interior Department that found 8 percent of the agency’s employees reported being sexual harassed over the past year.

RUNDOWN

Wall Street Journal Global investment in wind and solar is outshining fossil fuels

New York Times Free power from freeways? China is testing roads paved with solar panels

Washington Post Africa’s most famous trees are dying, and scientists suspect a changing climate

Reuters OPEC will squeeze oil buffer to historic lows with an output hike

Bloomberg Elliot’s Sempra bid is a warning to utilities who dare to branch out