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WILL THE PROJECTED ECONOMIC TOLL OF CLIMATE CHANGE SWAY REPUBLICANS? Republicans are on the spot following the Trump administration’s release of a report Friday that warned natural disasters associated with climate change are worsening in the U.S., potentially costing the economy hundreds of billions of dollars by 2100 if no changes are made.

The National Climate Assessment, prepared by 13 federal agencies and required by Congress, says if no major climate change policy happens soon, the damage of global warming will cut 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century’s end.

Measuring the toll: The report says that no sector of the economy will be unaffected, projecting in a worst-case scenario that labor-related losses caused by extreme heat could total $155 billion annually by 2090, while coastal property damage from sea level rise could reach $118 billion.

Climate change is already having an economic impact today, affecting U.S. companies’ overseas business operations and supply chains, the report says, and could disrupt global trade. The White House downplayed the report, which began before climate skeptic President Trump took office, saying it was “largely based on the most extreme scenario.”

Making climate a ‘dollar and cents’ issue: But free-market experts who support action to combat climate change hope the economic projections could provide a talking point with which to rebut Republicans’ main rationale for not wanting to impose a comprehensive policy: that it will cost too much.

“Of course, being able to move climate change from polar bears to dollars and cents is important for policy makers,” Joseph Majkut, director of climate policy for Niskanen Center, told Josh. “I doubt many members of Congress want to be callous about the plight of the polar bear, but many want to make sure American keeps growing sustainably.”

Republican senators respond cautiously: Republican Senators, however, are already responding to the report incredulously.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that “all of the proposals I’ve seen so far” would harm the U.S. economy.

Stressing ‘innovation’: Lee said he opposes a carbon tax, and that “if we’re going to move away from fossil fuels, it’s got to be done through innovation.”

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., also emphasized innovation on Sunday, and downplayed prospects for a major government solution.

“Right now you don’t hear a lot of [people] offering constructive, innovative solutions for the future, it’s usually just a lot of alarmism,” Sasse said on Fox News Sunday, while acknowledging the new climate report is “important” and that humans are helping cause global warming.

Josiah Neeley, energy policy director of the right-of-center R Street Institute, is taking solace in the fact that Republican senators are at least recognizing climate change is a problem, with economic ramifications.

“It’s important to recognize that climate change is an economic issue, not just an environmental one,” Neeley told Josh. “The question is: What are the policies needed to help innovation to flourish when it comes to clean energy?”

Inaction is costly: Other Republicans, however, said they expect more from the party.

Rep. Ryan Costello, R-Pa., a retiring member of the Climate Solutions Caucus, said Sunday that not “substantially” reducing carbon emissions would “cause economic hardship” worse than the short-term costs associated with aggressive climate action.

“The more precise policy analysis is cost of proposed action(s) vs inaction,” he wrote in a tweet.

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.  

LAWMAKERS TO INTRODUCE BIPARTISAN CARBON TAX BILL: Democratic and Republican lawmakers will introduce the first bipartisan carbon tax bill in a decade as soon as this week.

Rep. Ted Deutch of Florida, the Democratic co-chair of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, will unveil the legislation along with fellow members of the group, Reps. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa..

Rooney’s office confirmed the bill’s pending introduction to Josh. Jason Attermann, a spokesman for Deutch, told Josh the legislation is still being tweaked, and that the lawmakers will host a press conference later this week in advance of the bill’s introduction.

Bloomberg Environment first reported the news about the pending bill.

Why it matters: The bill has little chance of passage during the lame duck session of Congress. But it’s intended as a testing ground for a carbon-fee-and-dividend model that distributes the revenue from the tax to American households to protect them from higher energy costs.

Free-market groups have been promoting this approach in recent months, with the backing of some oil and gas companies, viewing it as the most realistic way for Republicans to come on board.

Momentum is building: This would be the second major carbon tax bill introduced this year, but the first that is bipartisan. Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, the GOP co-chair of the Climate Solutions Caucus, became the first Republican in nearly a decade to introduce national carbon pricing legislation this summer.

His bill, also co-sponsored by Rooney and Fitzpatrick, would take a different approach, imposing a tax beginning at $24 per ton of carbon dioxide in 2020. At the same time, it repeals the federal taxes on gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuels, and would spend the money mostly on improvements to America’s infrastructure.

Rooney and Fitzpatrick have said they intend to re-introduce Curbelo’s carbon tax bill next Congress, after the climate caucus leader lost re-election, ensuring there will be multiple proposals up for discussion in the new Congress.

WHY TRUMP OBSESSES ABOUT SAUDI ARABIA’S POWER OVER OIL PRICES: The U.S. is much less dependent on oil imports than a decade ago, but Trump can’t stop prodding and cajoling Saudi Arabia, long the world’s top producer, to keep pumping to maintain low prices.

America, thanks to the shale boom, has surpassed the Saudis as the world’s top oil producer, with output expected to reach new record highs of 12 million barrels per day in 2019, and it could soon become a net oil exporter for the first time in nearly 75 years.

But because European allies and competitors like China continue to rely on production from the Saudi-led oil cartel OPEC, and with the U.S. economy dependent on the global economy, American consumers are still exposed to oil price shocks.

“While OPEC’s influence is reduced thanks to surging U.S. production, the cartel still matters, primarily because of Saudi Arabia’s spare capacity and its ability to help balance supply and demand,” Dan Eberhart, CEO of the oil services firm Canary and a Trump donor, told Josh. “U.S. shale can come online pretty quickly, but it’s not fast enough to make America a swing producer.”

Oil as leverage: Trump’s obsession with low oil and gas prices helps explain why he is standing by Saudi Arabia after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The president on Wednesday credited Saudi Arabia for bringing down oil prices and encouraged the Kingdom to continue pumping.

Trump administration supporters say the president’s stance is reflective of his zero-sum view of the Middle East, where he considers Saudi Arabia crucial to combating Iran, blunting its influence in Syria and Lebanon, and keeping oil prices low.

“I am not surprised he is not linking the Khashoggi murder to broader U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia,” George David Banks, Trump’s former special assistant on international energy and environment, told Josh. “That’s just not his foreign policy. The president has built a lot of political capital and leverage with the Saudis.”

Beholden to oil? Critics, however, said Trump’s fears of an oil price spike prove that U.S. foreign policy remains beholden to global energy supply and that the only way to stop that is to transition the world away from oil through efficiency and alternative fuels and transportation.

“The best way to protect consumers from future oil price shocks is to reduce the overall oil use of our economy in the first place,” argued Jason Bordoff, the founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a former White House energy adviser to President Barack Obama.

Read more of Josh’s report here.

SENATE COMMITTEE TO VOTE ON  FERC NOMINEE DESPITE CONTROVERSIAL COMMENTS: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee announced Monday that it will vote Tuesday morning on Trump’s nomination of Bernard McNamee to join the Federal Energy and Regulatory Commission.

The swift vote, just weeks after his confirmation hearing, could allow McNamee to receive consideration before the full Senate by the end of the year.

Comments question his independence: McNamee is facing new scrutiny because of an unearthed video from earlier this year that shows him criticizing renewable energy and supporting fossil fuels.

McNamee, who was working for the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, delivered a speech in February to Texas lawmakers in which he said fossil fuels are “key to our way of life,” but renewable energy “screws up the whole physics of the grid.”

His comments could undermine his effort during the confirmation hearing to portray himself as unbiased and able to separate his political views from decisions he would make at FERC, an independent agency that oversees wholesale power markets.

Vow to be impartial: During his confirmation hearing last week, McNamee vowed to be impartial when considering potential Trump administration attempts to subsidize struggling coal and nuclear plants, and said he would consider decisions from a “fuel-neutral” perspective.

Critics have feared that McNamee could be biased in favor of Trump because he formerly worked as head of the Energy Department’s Office of Policy, which has spearheaded consideration of potential action to save coal and nuclear plants.

CALIFORNIA’S DEADLIEST WILDFIRE IS FULLY CONTAINED: Firefighters have fully contained the Camp Fire in Northern California, the state’s deadliest wildfire ever, officials announced Sunday.

The milestone comes 17 days after the fire started. It had killed 85 people as of Sunday.

But almost 300 people remain missing, Butte County officials said, meaning the death toll could rise.

The 153,336-acre Camp Fire was also California’s most destructive ever, leveling 13,972 residences, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said that he would be visiting Paradise, Calif. for the second time on Monday to meet with victims and first-responders.

HR MCMASTER TOLD TRUMP OFF FOR ASKING IRAQI PRIME MINISTER ABOUT OIL: Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster once rebuked Trump for raising the possibility of taking Iraq’s oil to compensate the U.S. for the money it has spent on the country’s war in a phone call with Iraq’s then-Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, according to a report.

“We can’t do this and you shouldn’t talk about it because talking about it is just bad,” McMaster said to Trump after the call in the summer of 2017, a source told Axios in a report published Sunday. “It’s bad for America’s reputation, it’ll spook allies, it scares everybody, and it makes us look like. I don’t remember if he used words this harsh like criminals and thieves, but that was the point he was trying to get across.”

Trump has repeatedly broached, in internal discussions and during meetings with al-Abadi himself, the idea of seizing oil from Iraq to reimburse the U.S. for the trillions spent on the conflict, Axios reported.

Reality check: Regardless of the logistical hurdles, Trump’s idea would face opposition in legal circles, given it could arguably be tantamount to a war crime under international law. It additionally would stymie efforts to rebuild Iraq, as well as potentially provide propaganda fodder to radical groups operating in the nation.

RUNDOWN

New York Times The world needs to quit coal. Why is it so hard?

Wall Street Journal Russia flexes muscles as natural gas industry booms

Axios Bill Gates’ new crusade: Sounding the climate-change alarm

Bloomberg Saudi Aramco plans to invest $500 billion as oil giant expands abroad

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