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MORE ON GOP CLIMATE PLAN: Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska told Josh in an interview after a press conference with colleagues yesterday that a new Republican climate plan he led pledging to cut global emissions up to 40% by 2050 is a “start” that could be strengthened over time.
“We think we can build on it,” Sullivan said. “This transition through technology and American innovation is already happening” but not “nearly fast enough” to reach more aggressive net-zero pledges most world leaders are now calling for in order to prevent the worst consequences of climate change.
Sullivan was joined at the press conference by Sens. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, who co-authored the plan that Josh reported first yesterday.
Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, John Kennedy of Louisiana, and Rob Portman of Ohio made cameos to support their colleagues’ effort, although they are not official signatories to the plan, which Sullivan said seeks to offer a “competing vision” to Democrats.
The plan leans heavily on Republican favorites, such as developing, deploying, and exporting carbon capture, advanced nuclear reactors, and battery storage, while “revitalizing” manufacturing of renewable energy technologies in the U.S, a goal shared by Democrats.
It also is aimed at reforming permitting of energy, infrastructure, and mining projects to ensure they can be built faster, another idea some Democrats support.
“We are not completely rejecting what they are doing,” Sullivan said of Democrats. He said Republicans have reached out to Democrats to gauge support.
Digging into fossil fuel stance: But most notably, the plan does not mention a need to reduce fossil fuel use and output over the next 30 years, and actually calls for expanding natural gas production at home, while exporting more LNG abroad.
Sullivan claimed that choice is meant as an intentional contrast to the Biden administration and Democrats, who he said are pushing to move off fossil fuels during an energy crunch.
“If you want to transition more to renewable and clean energy and you crush your current oil and gas sector, you can’t transition,” Sullivan said. “People talk about a bridge to renewables and clean energy. President Biden and John Kerry are literally blowing up the bridge.”
Sullivan noted Biden has taken steps to curtail oil and gas leasing on federal lands, a large part of the output in his state, and he accused Kerry of “telling financial institutions don’t invest in oil and gas.”
Biden and Kerry have made a distinction though, in pushing for more oil and gas production in the short term to alleviate supply shortages while making the case for the world to move off fossil fuels over time.
Democrats’ legislative agenda, in its compromised form because of opposition from centrist Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, actually does little to restrain emissions from oil and gas in the short-term.
Asked by Josh to explain how Biden’s stance of seeking near-term stability in energy supply while phasing out fossil fuels is inconsistent, Sullivan pivoted to saying Republicans would address emissions from oil and gas in a second element of its climate plan that it has not presented yet.
He said addressing methane leaks from oil and gas operations would be a “legitimate” area of focus, although he favors voluntary actions in order to not “crush” smaller producers with regulation.
And he is making a big bet on carbon capture and storage, which he said could get the U.S. “to a point where you are still producing what you need with oil and gas but capturing a lot of your emissions.”
“It hasn’t been proven yet, but we think that possibility is very high,” Sullivan said.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe) and Jeremy Beaman (@jeremywbeaman). 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.
OPEC+ RESISTS THE TEMPTATION ON OIL PRODUCTION: Saudi-led OPEC and its allies, led by Russia, once again rejected calls by the U.S. and other oil-consuming countries to increase crude production in order to reduce prices.
After finishing a meeting this morning, OPEC+ reaffirmed its current plan to boost its collective production by 400,000 barrels per day next month. Biden has repeatedly blamed OPEC+ for high oil prices, which have trickled down to cause spikes at U.S. gasoline pumps, prodding the group of oil producing nations to more aggressively ease its supply curb agreement it enacted during the pandemic.
But OPEC+ is resisting the pressure and taking a more cautious approach, arguing that despite the current market tightness, supply is slowly returning, and markets could be rebalanced by next year, especially if Iran is able to start exporting oil if the U.S. lifts sanctions as part of an eventual nuclear deal.
CUTTING OFF FOSSIL FUEL TAPS, INCLUDING OIL AND GAS: The United States has joined a group of more than 20 countries, including the United Kingdom, Italy, and Canada, vowing to end government funding of overseas coal, oil, and gas projects by the end of next year and prioritize clean energy finance instead.
The nonbinding agreement announced today at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow applies to public support for “unabated” fossil fuel projects, meaning those built without carbon capture technologies.
It contains exceptions for projects that serve “limited and clearly defined circumstances that are consistent” with the goal of the Paris Agreement to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
That loophole, for example, could enable the financing of natural gas facilities in coal-dependent poor countries with growing energy demand when there is no economically and technically feasible cleaner alternative.
The three largest fossil fuel financiers, China, Japan, and South Korea, did not sign the pledge. Those three countries have recently pledged to end overseas financing of coal projects, but cutting off oil and gas projects was a step too far for them.
Collin Rees, senior campaigner for Oil Change U.S., noted the pledge comes after the International Energy Agency said in a surprising report in May that investments in new oil and gas development must immediately stop to reach net-zero global emissions.
“This is very substantial and very significant as an announcement, both at a material level in terms of money and symbolically, showing where the discussion is going,” Rees told Josh, adding the countries part of the agreement are responsible for about 30% of overseas fossil fuel funding.
ON THE OTHER HAND…CHINA CINCHES RECORD DEAL TO IMPORT US GAS: Venture Global and China’s Sinopec announced today the largest ever long-term LNG contract between Chinese and American companies.
Sinopec will buy 4 million tonnes of LNG over 20 years from Venture export facility, in Plaquemines, Louisiana. In a separate shorter deal, the Chinese firm will purchase 3.5 million tonnes of LNG from Venture Global’s export facility in Calcasieu Pass, Louisiana.
Together, the purchases will double China’s imports of U.S. LNG, according to Mike Sabel, CEO of Venture Global, who celebrated the agreement in a video ceremony.
He touted that “making U.S. LNG accessible” in Asia, as a fuel source to replace coal, “will have the most immediate and significant impact on the global climate.”
China has been binging on U.S. natural gas to manage an energy shortage and reduce its carbon footprint from coal. It’s a huge turn-around from the height of the U.S. trade war with China during the Trump administration, when Beijing essentially cut off imports of U.S. LNG in retaliation for tariffs.
NATIONS MAKE NEW COAL CUTTING COMMITMENTS: Twenty-three countries have made new commitments to phase out the use of coal power, including Indonesia (the world’s top coal producer and a top-20 coal power user), which is shooting to accomplish the phase-out in the 2040s conditional on further international assistance.
Commitments include other top-20 coal power-generating countries in South Korea, Vietnam, Poland, and Ukraine.
They agreed to scale up clean energy deployment and introduce policies to move away from unabated coal power generation, and to cease issuance of new permits for new unabated power generation projects, although Indonesia did not agree to the latter clause.
The commitments mean “the end of coal power is now within sight,” said Alok Sharma, the president of COP26.
A DECADE OF FLAT EMISSIONS? Global carbon emissions are back up near 2019 levels after last year’s slump, according to a new study — something the International Energy Agency predicted would happen months ago — but a separate report put together by the Global Carbon Project suggests that total CO2 emissions over the past decade have remained flat.
Updated assessments of GCP’s land-use datasets lower the project’s estimates of global cropland expansion, resulting in a reduction by nearly half of its previous estimate of net emissions from land-use change over the past two years, per an analysis by Carbon Brief’s Zeke Hausfather.
The report does note that its findings may not fully reflect the effects of recent deforestation in Brazil, and GCP scientist Julia Pongratz, who is director of the Department of Geography at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, said that “more regional analysis is needed and accurate, high-resolution monitoring of land-use dynamics.”
HYDRO ASKS FOR HELP IN BBB: A slate of New England’s hydropower companies are asking Democrats in Congress to fund a 30% investment tax credit in their Build Back Better Act to support upgrades and prevent the retirement of generators.
“Without the Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP) or other federal support, the carbon-free hydropower generators that provide the flexibility needed to operate an electric system with variable wind and solar are at risk of premature decommissioning,” the National Hydropower Association wrote in a letter sent today to House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal.
EPA HAS A NEW TOP LAWYER: The Senate approved Jeffrey Prieto yesterday to be general counsel of the EPA in a 54-44 vote. Four Republicans supported his confirmation: Cramer, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, and Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker of Mississippi.
BILL AIMS TO PROTECT TAXPAYERS FROM GREEN ‘BOONDOGGLES:’ Sen. John Barrasso, the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, introduced legislation yesterday designed to insulate taxpayers from funding what his office called “green energy boondoggles.”
The bill would prevent the secretary of energy from approving loans for firms that have already defaulted on a previous department loan, with the background being Barrasso’s “Solyndra Syndrome & the Green Stimulus Delusion” report that his office released in May.
The Rundown
Washington Post India says it will reach net-zero emissions by 2070. Can renewables meet the growing demand of more than 1 billion people?
Wall Street Journal COP26 negotiators make progress on carbon-trading rules
Washington Post This US city just voted to decarbonize every single building
E&E News Cortez Masto pushes mine royalties out of reconciliation bill
Calendar
FRIDAY | NOV. 5
9:30 a.m. U.S. Pavilion in Glasgow. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will announce the Third U.S. Energy Earthshot and Mission Innovation Global Partnership on Carbon Dioxide Removal.
