With help from Sam Mintz, Ben Lefebvre and Anthony Adragna
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— Concern is mounting over the Defense Department’s potential influence over a delayed PFAS regulation that would subject the chemicals to costly Superfund cleanup requirements.
— House Democrats unveiled a bill Thursday with the aim of reaching net-zero emissions of greenhouse gas pollution driving climate change by 2050.
— The Interior Department is weighing a possible increase to the amount of acres available in Alaska for oil and gas drilling.
FINALLY FRIDAY! I’m your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. Check out the new POLITICO Energy podcast — all the energy and environmental politics and policy news you need to start your day, in just five minutes. Listen and subscribe for free at politico.com/energy-podcast.
Aramco’s Paul Greenough gets the trivia win. There are eight senators with the name John/Jon: John Barrasso (R-Wyo.); John Boozman (R-Ark.); John Cornyn (R-Texas); John Hoeven (R-N.D.); Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.); John Neely Kennedy (R-La.); Jon Tester (D-Mont.); and John Thune (R-S.D.). For today: Who was the first member of Congress to pick an office in the first ever congressional office building, Cannon? Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to ktamborrino@politico.com.
WHAT’S THE HOLD-UP? The Trump administration has been slow-walking efforts to clean up two PFAS chemicals — PFOA and PFOS — that have been linked to health risks around the country, two sources close to EPA tell Pro’s Annie Snider. The delay of EPA’s promised rule to declare those two widely used chemicals as hazardous under the Superfund law is raising concerns about the Defense Department’s influence over a regulation that could cost it billions of dollars.
Two sources close to EPA say agency staff completed work on a proposed version of that rule in September, but it still has not been sent to the White House for review. The delay comes as Defense Department officials and former chemical industry officials have been playing an out-sized role in the process, including through a White House-led council launched this summer, Annie reports. Earlier this year the Pentagon successfully weakened EPA’s draft cleanup requirements for the toxins, and last month a top defense official ignored the EPA guidance, instructing the military to use screening levels that are 10 times higher than EPA recommended when looking for the chemicals at its sites.
A Superfund designation for the two chemicals would require expensive cleanups at military bases, factories and other contaminated sites. The Defense Department estimates that it faces more than $2 billion in cleanup costs for the chemicals.
An industry source close to the administration said the Superfund rule would likely remain on hold through next year. “It’s not going to go anywhere,” the source said of PFAS regulations. “The view from the high-level politicals within the administration is nothing is happening on this before the election.”
NDAA latest: On the Hill, a deal on the defense bill and its PFAS provisions remained elusive Thursday, with congressional negotiators still at odds over provisions reining in border wall spending and implementing of a Space Force, Pro’s Connor O’Brien reports. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi drew a line in the sand with respect to PFAS provisions in the bill Wednesday, according to Senate Armed Services Chairman Jim Inhofe who said she wrote a letter to senior lawmakers about the topic.
“It says unless we have her PFAS language, she will not bring the bill up for a vote in the House,” Inhofe told POLITICO on Thursday. “Once you make that statement, you know something is not sellable.”
BROUILLETTE CONFIRMATION LOOMING: President Donald Trump’s pick to replace Rick Perry as Energy secretary, Dan Brouillette, cleared a key procedural hurdle Thursday, setting up a quick timeline for confirmation ahead of Perry’s Dec. 1 exit. Senators voted 74-18 to invoke cloture on the nomination, with two dozen Democrats joining Republicans to back the nominee, Pro’s Anthony Adragna reports. Votes on Brouillette’s confirmation are scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Dec. 2, once senators return from the Thanksgiving holiday.
DEMOCRATS UNVEIL BILL TO REACH CLEAN ECONOMY BY 2050: More than 150 House Democrats are backing legislation that would set a goal of reaching a 100 percent clean economy by 2050, Anthony reports. The bill, led by Rep. Donald McEachin (D-Va.), would direct federal agencies to craft plans for hitting the 2050 goal through existing legal authorities, such as “issuing regulations, providing incentives, carrying out research and development programs, reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of such federal agency itself” and any other appropriate steps. The measure, dubbed the 100 percent Clean Economy Act of 2019, does not specify particular steps the agencies should take toward meeting the goals.
PROTESTERS ARRESTED IN PELOSI’S OFFICE: Nine protesters with Extinction Rebellion were arrested Thursday, amid their weeklong hunger strike and protest in Pelosi’s Longworth congressional office. The protesters, who began their strike on Monday, have called for an on-camera, one-hour conversation with the speaker to air their demands for aggressive action on climate change. Capitol Police told ME they arrested nine individuals in Longworth on Thursday who were charged with unlawful entry. The group vowed in a statement to continue their hunger strike from jail.
REPUBLICANS CRY PARTISANSHIP ON PIPELINE BILL: Republicans on the House Transportation Committee are complaining Democrats are blocking their efforts to cooperate on several bills that this week, dividing the often-bipartisan panel. T&I approved a pipeline safety reauthorization bill and legislation, and Republicans say they didn’t have a chance to weigh in ahead of time. A Republican committee aide said Democrats had been working with Republicans on a pipeline bill on the staff level but that the negotiations were cut off in August.
In an interview, Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), who’s been on T&I for 32 years, scoffed at the notion that Democrats’ moves are out of bounds. On the pipeline bill, “we met and talked with them for months and they just, there were things that they just didn’t want to do,” DeFazio said, including doing away with methane releases and imposing new safety restrictions on gathering lines. “So we wrote our own bill in concert with Energy and Commerce. That’s the end of the story.”
E&C subcommittee Chairman Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) told Bloomberg Environment’s Tiffany Stecker that he wasn’t thrilled T&I got involved in the pipeline bill. “I’m a straight, absolute, dyed in the wool, unrepentant jurisdictionalist,” he said, though a spokesperson for Rush said he supported the bill out of T&I.
OPENING UP: The Bureau of Land Management is opening up comment on a draft plan unveiled Thursday that could increase the amount of acres available in Alaska for oil and gas drilling, Pro’s Ben Lefebvre reports. The agency said it may add up to 6.5 million acres to the portion of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska that could be leased to oil companies.
Several options are outlined in a new environmental impact statement and draft leasing plan BLM released, including the possibility of leaving NPR-A energy leasing confined to the 11.8 million acres where it is currently allowed. BLM did not make a recommendation on which alternative to choose, but it pointed out that the plan stems from an order former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signed in 2018 for “clean and safe development in the NPR-A.”
SEE IT: Sixty percent of the nation’s Superfund sites lie in areas vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and EPA, which oversees the sites, should be doing more to address the risks, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Monday. Pro DataPoint’s Patterson Clark breaks down the sites in a DataPoint graphic.
FLURRY OF ACTION AT FERC: FERC approved four natural gas export projects and two gas pipelines at its open meeting Thursday, in votes that showed a widening split among commissioners over how the agency should weigh climate change in its evaluations, Pro’s Gavin Bade reports. The agency voted 2-1 to approve three new liquefied natural gas facilities in Texas and an expansion to the Corpus Christi Liquefaction facility. By the same votes, it approved El Paso Natural Gas’ Mainline Expansion pipeline in the Southwest and rejected appeals challenging its approval of the Spire STL pipeline through Missouri.
Republican Commissioner Bernard McNamee issued a lengthy concurring statement with the El Paso Natural Gas project, saying that rejecting a gas pipeline due to its impacts on climate change would violate the Natural Gas Act in most cases. The concurrence highlighted the long-running conflict over climate change that has put Republican FERC commissioners at odds with environmental groups and some Democrats, including Commissioner Richard Glick.
Also at the open meeting: FERC established a new methodology for setting the return on equity earned by owners of transmission lines, applying it to two disputes in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, and accepted energy storage compliance filings today from three regional grid operators, Gavin also reports. It also announced the creation of a new cybersecurity division at the agency as part of a reorganization designed to better address threats to energy infrastructure.
— “Evers signs bill making it a felony to trespass on pipelines,” via Associated Press.
— “Exxon steps up assets sales with sweeping $25 billion plan,” via Reuters.
— “Trump administration launches project to keep plastic waste out of oceans,” via Washington Examiner.
— “Young Republican staffers frustrate CO2-loving group,” via E&E News.
— “How cities are turning food into fuel,” via POLITICO Magazine.
— “Photo from 1898 sparks hilarious theory that Greta Thunberg is a time-traveler,” via Huffington Post.
THAT’S ALL FOR ME!
