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BIDEN OUTLINES CLIMATE STANCE FOR NEW CONGRESS: President Joe Biden said in his post-midterm presser yesterday that he’d be ready to work with Republicans in the event they win one or both chambers of Congress, but he stood firm on the non-“compromisable” issue of climate change.
His remarks set the table for what could be reasonably expected to be another messy Congress as far as energy policy is concerned, however control of each chamber shakes out. Biden had a hard enough time getting the scaled-down version of his agenda through Congress with unified Democratic government.
The two parties remain about as far apart ideologically as possible on climate change and what to do about it. Especially regarding the Inflation Reduction Act, which Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer suggested a Republican Congress could “go at one piece at a time,” i.e. by stripping out individual provisions they dislike.
Cramer singled out the “climate side of things” in those comments.
Biden is interpreting the Democrats’ better-than-expected performance on Tuesday night as a vindication of his climate policy and the IRA.
He said voters showed they chose to “continue addressing the climate crisis” by blunting the GOP’s takeover, and he said he’d use his veto pen if Republicans try to interrupt the implementation of things Democrats have already passed — the most prominent, controversial, and fresh-on-the-mind of which would be the IRA.
Room for some agreement? Members just may be able to meet in the middle on permitting reform going forward once the midterm cycle is eventually settled. The appetite is there.
“Too cumbersome and too time consuming,” is how Biden described the approval of new energy infrastructure last month, urging Congress to pass a reform bill. Republicans overwhelmingly agree.
But that may see him splitting further with environmentalists, who’ve overwhelmingly supported the Inflation Reduction Act but challenged the administration’s work on increasing liquefied natural gas exports to Europe and its requests for more oil production.
Otherwise, just where congressional Democrats go next on climate policy, especially in the event of divided government, is an open question. A major emphasis for many of their environmental constituencies so far has been careful and speedy implementation of the IRA’s green energy provisions and making progress on state-level climate policy.
House Republicans in particular promised voters a course correction on energy policy and have already indicated where they intend to exhaust their investigative energies, as seen in Oversight Republicans’ probe into Biden’s use of the SPR, if they take the lead on committees.
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BREAKING – CALIFORNIA NET METERING PROPOSAL WITHDRAWN: California regulators today withdrew a proposal, widely opposed by the solar industry, that would have reduced compensation to residential solar users for selling their excess electricity back to the grid.
Administrative Law Judge Kelly Hymes, who has overseen the drawn-out proceeding, issued an order withdrawing the “net metering” reform proposal.
Prominent lawmakers and figures, from Sen. Dianne Feinstein to Elon Musk, had weighed in against the proposal, and solar interests insisted it would disincentivize the expansion of solar technology.
HURRICANE NICOLE HITS FLORIDA: Hurricane Nicole made landfall on Florida’s east coast this morning as a strong Category 1 storm, bringing with it heavy rains, a dangerous storm surge, and winds that extended some 450 miles from the storm’s center.
More than 240,000 homes remained without power in the hours after Nicole tore through the region and began heading toward the Florida Panhandle and into Georgia and the Carolinas.
Stil, Florida had acted quickly to prepare for Nicole—which comes less than two months after Hurricane Ian barreled into the state as a near-Category 5 hurricane, destroying parts of the southwestern Gulf coastline and bringing a massive storm surge that devastated coastal towns.
“This is a life-threatening situation,” national hurricane specialist Jack Beven said this morning. People in the region, he said, “should take all necessary actions to protect life and property from rising water and the potential for other dangerous conditions.”
NORD STREAM OPERATORS GIVEN GREEN LIGHT TO SURVEY DANISH WATERS: Danish authorities have granted Nord Stream pipeline operators permission to survey their waters to inspect the Nord Stream pipeline blasts, local news outlets reported, as they seek to gather information and assess damage from four powerful explosions.
The application grants Nord Stream AG permission to survey the depths of Denmark’s exclusive economic zone, Reuters reports, and comes after Nord Stream AG was cleared earlier this month to send a chartered ship off the coast of Sweden to inspect another blast site.
European leaders have urged heightened security around energy infrastructure in wake of the blasts, which many described as an act of “sabotage.” So far, no one has been blamed for carrying out the explosions.
WHITE HOUSE PROPOSES CLIMATE DISCLOSURES FOR CONTRACTORS: The Biden administration is proposing a new rule to require climate-related disclosures from “major” federal contractors, defined as those receiving more than $50 million in annual contracts.
The White House announced the rule this morning ahead of Biden’s trip to COP27, where he will give remarks tomorrow about the administration’s achievements on climate issues and discuss the proposed rule. The rule, crafted by the Office of Federal Chief Sustainability Officer within CEQ, would require public disclosure of emissions, as well as climate-related financial risks, and the setting of emissions reduction targets.
Disclosure of Scope 3 emissions in “relevant categories” would be required, along with Scope 1 and 2.
The Biden administration has sought to use the immense purchasing power of the federal government to cut emissions and incentivize clean energy. Biden’s December 2021 executive order setting out various emissions targets for government agencies was drawn up with the intention of “catalyzing America’s clean energy economy through federal sustainability.”
Agencies are following through. The Army, Navy, and Air Force have all put together climate strategies adopting Biden’s targets, and the General Services Administration proposed a rule in the summer to reduce the use of plastic consumed in both packaging and shipping under agency contracts.
MOLDOVA TO ASK EU FOR EMERGENCY CASH AMID FEARED RUSSIAN GAS CUTOFF: Moldova’s prime minister, Natalia Gavrilița, is planning to ask the EU for more than $450 million in emergency cash, due to what she described as the “very real possibility” that Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom will cut supplies to the country this winter.
Moldova, a small country that shares a border with Ukraine, is already deep in the throes of an energy crisis. Utility costs have soared tenfold in the past 12 months, and the country remains deeply dependent on Russia for its energy.
In October, Gazprom began throttling its deliveries to Chișinău by 30%, citing a payment dispute it has used as cover in the past to abruptly halt other European deliveries.
“I don’t want people to underestimate … how much of a collateral victim of the Ukrainian war the Moldovan people are,” Gavrilița told Politico EU in an interview.
PAKISTAN’S FOREIGN MINISTER: FLOODS SHOW NEED FOR REPARATIONS: Pakistan’s foreign minister said his country will seek financial compensation for this year’s catastrophic floods that caused roughly $30 billion in damages—saying the natural disaster only reaffirms the need for wealthier countries to deliver on reparations.
Though the issue of reparations remains highly divisive, it was nevertheless formally placed on the COP27 agenda this week for the first time.
“The next country that’s affected should have something available so that they can address the loss and damage,” Prime Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said in an interview on CNBC, citing the lessons he learned firsthand in the aftermath of the Pakistan floods.
The Rundown
Financial Times Joe Biden’s energy agenda survives the midterm vote
CNBC ‘A twisted joke’: UN’s flagship climate summit sees sharp jump in fossil fuel industry delegates
E&E News 3 ways the midterms will transform energy
Calendar
MONDAY | NOVEMBER 14
3:00 p.m. The Senate reconvenes in Washington.
