SIGN UP! If you’d like to continue receiving Washington Examiner’s Daily on Energy newsletter, SUBSCRIBE HERE: http://newsletters.washingtonexaminer.com/newsletter/daily-on-energy/

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION MAINTAINS THAT NUCLEAR AND CLEAN COAL ARE THE CLIMATE SOLUTION: Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Thursday that clean coal technology and nuclear power are the way to reduce emissions and face down global warming, using the added authority of the International Energy Agency director to bolster that position.

“We believe that you can’t have a serious conversation about reducing emissions without including nuclear energy and carbon capture technologies,” Perry said at an early morning joint press conference with IEA director Fatih Birol announcing two new initiatives to advance those emission reducing solutions.

Perry noted that Birol agrees that making fossil fuels cleaner through carbon capture is necessary, given the projections for continued use of fossil fuels until the next century. Carbon capture technology removes the carbon dioxide pollution emitted by coal or other fossil fuel power plants, or manufacturing facilities.

Birol, in later testimony before the Senate Thursday, said carbon capture is the “most vital” technology of any to lower carbon emissions given the world is nowhere near the “end of the coal age,” mostly because of Asian countries, whose coal plants are relatively young.

He said there is “a growing disconnect” between climate change targets and “what’s happening in real life,” noting emissions are increasing.

“We are not in a position to pick up our favored technology today,” Birol told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “We need all those: renewables, nuclear, CCUS [carbon capture] and efficiency.”

Perry, at the earlier press conference, announced a new $24 million effort to advance new “transformational” carbon capture technology. The funding will be used for cost-sharing research with industry to advance the emission-reducing tech by reducing “knowledge gaps” and scientific challenges posed by the cost of the technology.

The cost of deploying the technology at fossil plants continues to be a primary hurdle in making carbon capture more widespread. Most of the U.S. power plants that use carbon capture p in the U.S. are test

Birol said U.S. leadership is crucial, and the whole world is in need of carbon capture to continue using fossil fuels.

Pressing for nuclear power: Perry also announced the launch of a new test reactor as a “key step” in implementing President Trump’s aim to “revitalize the nuclear energy industry.” The reactor will be used to help industry test new nuclear energy reactor designs to spur a new generation of nuclear power plants.

Birol warned that allowing the country’s current fleet of reactors to retire will harm the nation’s role as the global leader on nuclear power, while also forcing carbon emissions higher.

He told senators that China is set to overtake the U.S. as the “number one nuclear power” in the world within 10 years if policies don’t change.

“It is a critical juncture for nuclear in the U.S.,” Birol said, adding that ceding the nuclear market to China “would be detrimental to both energy security and clean energy objectives.”

Fatih gifts Rick: Birol gave Perry a “gift” at the press conference: A new statistic that showed Perry’s home state of Texas has now surpassed Europe in wind and solar energy production.

Texas now produces 15 percent of its energy from wind and solar energy, Birol said. Perry noted the U.S. is now the second largest renewable energy generator of electricity in the world.

Welcome to Daily on Energy, written 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.  

FORMER OBAMA OFFICIAL HELPING TRUMP ESTABLISH CLIMATE SKEPTIC PANEL: A former Obama administration official is helping the Trump White House mount a challenge to the scientific consensus on climate change.

Steven Koonin, a former undersecretary for science in the Energy Department, told Josh in an exclusive interview that the nascent effort is meant to make “the science more transparent and explicit.”

He argues that climate science conventional wisdom is flawed, relies on alarmist scenarios, exaggerates economic impacts, and fails to note the “climate has actually become milder.”

Koonin is best known for being recruited by former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt to lead a “red team/blue team” debate of climate science, but then-chief of staff John Kelly ultimately canceled the project.

His new project: Now, he is assisting the White House in creating a committee to scrutinize climate science after being asked by long-time friend William Happer, a controversial National Security Council senior director leading the effort. The committee is being derided by critics, with Koonin’s one-time colleague John Holdren, a former White House science adviser in the Obama administration, branding it a “slapdash band of climate contrarians.”

The exact form of the climate skeptic panel is to be determined. It could be an independent federal advisory committee, subject to transparency rules, or an “ad hoc” working group operating in secret.

Koonin said that after helping set up the group up, he may be a member.

Read details of Koonin’s plan for the committee here.

WHEELER TO BE CONFIRMED DESPITE LOSING MODERATES: The Senate is prepared to confirm acting administrator Andrew Wheeler on Thursday to continue leading the EPA, despite his loss of support from notable moderates.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine announced Wednesday she plans to oppose Wheeler because of his inattention to addressing climate change while serving as acting administrator of the agency.

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a centrist Senate Democrat, also said Wednesday he would oppose Wheeler after backing him last year.

Manchin, a fierce defender of his state’s coal industry, said the EPA had gone too far with a proposal to change the way the government calculates the benefits of restricting mercury emissions from coal plants.

GREEN NEW DEAL GAINS CO-SPONSORS BUT NO VOTE IN SIGHT: The Green New Deal, a 16-page resolution calling on Congress to tackle climate change by eliminating fossil fuels, has gained nearly two dozen sponsors since freshman star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., introduced it on Feb. 7.

But the proposal makes many House Democrats uneasy and Democratic leaders have acknowledged it may never get a vote.

“I can’t say we are going to take that and pass it,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who once called the resolution a “Green New Dream,” told a Howard University audience Wednesday.

House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, said other legislation to address climate change may end up on the floor instead. The proposal does not include specific ways to lower carbon emission, but rather sets ambitious but nonbinding goals that also include universal healthcare and guaranteed jobs.

“We are interested in getting things done,” McGovern told the Washington Examiner. “And this in many respects is kind of an aspirational document and these are the goals. The question is, when would be the appropriate time to have this discussion in committee and on the floor?”

As of Wednesday, 89 Democrats have signed onto the Green New Deal resolution, an increase of 22 lawmakers since the day it was introduced.

AOC BACKS OUT FROM DEFENDING GREEN NEW DEAL, CITING MICHAEL COHEN:

Ocasio-Cortez had agreed to appear before Republicans on Wednesday to face criticism of her Green New Deal, but then declined, saying she had to be at the Oversight hearing with Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen.

“We reached out to her … and she initially said ‘yes,'” Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., who chaired the Wednesday hearing of the Western Caucus, told John.

He explained that he and Ocasio-Cortez serve on the same Oversight Committee that spent all day questioning Cohen and he was able to ask his questions early on. “We tried to make every opportunity for her to join, but she wasn’t able to,” he continued.

The Western Caucus forum, entitled the “Green New Deal Pipe Dream,” featured primarily opponents of the progressive climate change agenda, who testified and answered questions from Gosar and other Republicans. Proponents of Ocasio-Cortez’ deal were also invited, and either declined to participate, or were unresponsive to invitations, according to a caucus agenda.

CLIMATE GROUP WORKS WITH BUSINESSES TO DEVELOP SHORT-TERM ALTERNATIVES TO GREEN NEW DEAL: The environmental nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, with input from leading businesses, outlined several short-term policies Thursday that the federal government should pursue on a bipartisan basis to combat climate change, with the Green New Deal remaining far-off.

The group, led by Bob Perciasepe, a former EPA deputy administrator in the Obama administration, said the Green New Deal has sparked important discussions. But it said necessary comprehensive solutions, such as carbon pricing, remain polticially unfeasible, so Congress should play small-ball in the meantime.

In a paper, the group suggested several policies: They include increasing funding for clean energy research; expanding the tax credit for electric vehicles; and expanding and improving transmission lines to share renewable power to places without much of it.

The group also says Congress should support nuclear power by both preventing the early retirement of existing plants, and spending money on research for smaller advanced reactors. It also called for increased research funding for carbon capture, and direct air capture technologies, and for extending help to the natural gas industry to better detect leaks of methane emissions from its operations.

The group is set to host an event on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon to unveil its climate plan, with Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., the co-chair of the Climate Solutions Caucus who has introduced a carbon tax bill.

RUNDOWN

Wall Street Journal PG&E delayed safety work on power line that is prime suspect in California wildfire

Los Angeles Times California’s biggest county could severely restrict solar energy projects

Reuters Meeting Maduro – Inside a U.S. businessman’s oil deal with Venezuela

Wall Street Journal Venezuela cushions blow of oil sanctions with non-US sales