Comprehensive energy legislation promised by Senate and House committee leaders is beginning to take shape with a deluge of bills introduced this week.
Senators dropped about two dozen energy bills Thursday — including 17 from Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski — on a range of topics including electric grid modernization and faster interstate and cross-boundary pipeline approvals. The Alaska Republican said that conversations are occurring beyond her committee, noting she often touts her effort during regular caucus meetings.
“I make no secret of the fact that I am trying to build up, build out, an energy package,” Murkowski told reporters Thursday, noting that a handful of Democratic senators who aren’t on the committee testified at a hearing last week in support of several energy efficiency bills the panel reviewed.
Separately, House Energy and Commerce Committee staff began circulating draft bills Wednesday regarding hydropower infrastructure and natural gas pipeline permitting.
The bills Murkowski introduced run the gamut, but avoided controversial matters that might have squandered support from Democratic committee members.
“It’s not going to benefit me to try to move a measure that has no bipartisan support. I might be able to move it through committee, but if I can’t actually move it through the floor, that’s a lot of work for no gain,” Murkowski said, adding that she and ranking member Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., plan to set aside issues on which they strongly disagree.
Absent from the package are measures on the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline and the Obama administration’s proposed emissions limits on power plants, which falls under the jurisdiction of another committee. Murkowski said she plans to introduce her bill to end the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports separately on Tuesday — though she said “it could be part of a broader energy bill.”
Murkowski has said her panel would review multiple bills at a time under specific categories dealing with efficiency, supply, accountability and infrastructure. Some of the measures Murkowski introduced Thursday include:
• Creating a body to expedite interstate transmission line projects, which could be used to connect far-flung wind energy farms and other generation to populated areas where power demand is greater.
• Establishing a cross-agency team between the Interior and Energy departments to assess the nexus of water supply and energy development, a key issue in the hydraulic fracturing-heavy and water-starved West
• Setting up periodic reviews of how regulations affect electricity supply and reliability.
• Requiring Interior to sign a memorandum of understanding with states that would allow them to regulate fracking within their borders. That builds on a provision of recently finalized fracking rules on federal lands that permits states with equal or more stringent regulations to use their own standard rather than federal ones.
• Calling on DOE to define “condensate,” a type of light oil that the Commerce Department has permitted a pair of companies to export so long as it’s processed. Advocates of ending the crude oil export ban have considered that move a step toward ending trade restrictions.
• Giving supremacy to keeping the electric grid running rather than complying with environmental regulations.
A number of senators revived or updated bills in the past couple days as well, many of which deal with pipeline infrastructure. The topic has become an increasingly bipartisan concern as booming shale oil and gas regions unlocked by fracking have exposed a lack of pipelines needed to transport fuel from drill sites.
Sens. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., floated legislation that imposes a 120-day deadline for completing a federal review for cross-border oil pipelines or electric transmission lines. It also would require DOE to rule on natural gas pipelines within 30 days.
The legislation is a shot at the Obama administration’s handling of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline. That Canada-to-Texas pipeline needs a presidential permit because it crosses into Canada, but has been mired in delays and restarts for more than six years.
But President Obama has waved his veto pen at that legislation because the White House said it would impose too quick a turnaround on decisions.
The White House said much of the same when it threatened vetoing a House bill that passed in January. The bill required the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to review interstate natural gas pipelines within a year; other agencies in the process would have had up to four months to reject or OK proposals and, if that deadline were missed, the project would proceed after 30 days.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., is taking another stab at that House legislation, but with a twist. Rather than kicking an interstate oil or natural gas pipeline proposal to automatic approval after 30 days, legislation she introduced Thursday would set up a consultation process between agencies.
“This bill increases pipeline capacity, allowing the U.S. to fully take advantage of its vast natural gas reserves and limit any overload on existing pipelines,” Capito said of her bill, which is co-sponsored by Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., also reintroduced a pair of natural gas pipeline bills that he said would hasten replacement of leaky pipes prone to explosions. One encourages utilities to repair the leakiest pipes first and creating cost-recovery programs for replacement while capping the amount utilities can charge customers for natural gas that escapes through pipelines. The other bill would create a state revolving loan fund for pipeline fixes.
The electric grid also got some attention from lawmakers. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., proposed a bill that would give states more authority in setting the rates at which utilities purchase small amounts of renewable power — in this case, less than 2 megawatts.
Currently, FERC regulates rates for those so-called power-purchase agreements, which Wyden said undervalues those generation sources. That’s because FERC requires that price remain lower than what it would cost utilities to produce the power themselves or to stay below the price of the lowest-cost supplier.
But Murkowski also wanted to investigate the effect of distributed generation like small renewable power and “net metering” policies that benefit rooftop solar customers.
Net metering pays rooftop solar customers for power they supply back to the electric grid. But the policy is under attack from some conservatives and the electric utility industry because they argue non-solar customers cover solar customers’ share of grid upkeep.
Proponents of net metering, though, say rooftop solar customers smooth supply shocks for electric utilities and provide unaccounted for health and climate benefits. They contend electric utilities are trying to claw back revenues after losing customers that go “off grid” with solar.
One of Murkowski bills would require state regulators to review net metering policies to ensure the rates are “just and reasonable” and “not unduly preferential or discriminatory.”
