With help from Ben Lefebvre, Annie Snider, Kelsey Tamborrino and Catherine Morehouse
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— Senate Democrats say they are down to ironing out the details for a reconciliation agreement, though the possibility of losing a methane fee brought some additional consternation Monday evening.
— The world’s developed economies admitted they failed to reach their $100 billion international climate finance goal to help poorer countries, and they probably won’t hit it until 2023.
— FERC Chair Rich Glick is trying to ensure clean energy measures don’t prompt utilities to turn away from the RTOs the regulator has been promoting for years.
HAPPY TUESDAY! I’m your host, Matthew Choi. Mabrouk to E3’s Elizabeth Stolpe for knowing King Fuad II was the last king of Egypt. For today’s trivia, finish the lyrics: “I am agog! I am aghast! Is Marius ____?” Send your tips and trivia answers to [email protected]. Find me on Twitter @matthewchoi2018.
Check out the 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. On today’s episode: The opportunities and challenges of offshore wind
THE END IS NEAR: House Democrats are hoping to schedule a vote on the Senate-approved bipartisan infrastructure bill Wednesday. But to get there without repeating last month’s fiasco, they’ll also need a framework on the climate and social spending reconciliation bill that will satisfy House progressives.
Senate Democrats are increasingly optimistic that they’ll get there. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said negotiators only have “three to four outstanding issues.” Senate Energy Chair Joe Manchin said there “really should be” a framework finished by this week, even though turning all the policy plans into legislative text will remain a heavy task. Democrats also haven’t yet agreed to a top line figure for reconciliation, with the West Virginian still adamant about a $1.5 trillion cap and Democratic leadership hoping for closer to $2 trillion.
Either way, a number of programs will be axed from the House’s previous $3.5 trillion version, but much of those negotiations appear to now center on the social spending aspects of the package. After Manchin effectively ended talk of a Clean Electricity Performance Program, the biggest philosophical battles on climate provisions appear to be over, and Manchin met with Schumer, Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Tom Carper (D-Del.) to iron out the climate details Monday, Pro’s Marianne LeVine and Burgess Everett report.
Still unsettled however, is the proposed methane fee on oil and gas companies’ leaks, sources tell ME. Manchin, acting on behalf of moderate House Democrats representing Texas, has argued against the fees, three people familiar with the talks said, though there was disagreement on how successful he was in making the case.
One person familiar with the talks said the wrangling over the fees was “all but over,” with the oil industry winning its argument that the fee would be a camel-breaking straw when added to the tougher methane regulations the EPA is expected to announce any day now. But two others said talks were ongoing. “Nothing real yet,” said one person connected to the White House on the outcome of the negotiations, while a Congressional aide said the fees were “still being negotiated.”
Because of Manchin’s success in chipping away at other bill provisions that would have added costs to fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, progressives late Monday insisted that the fees stay in. “A robust methane fee is a fair and essential part of meeting our targets ahead of Glasgow,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said in a statement to ME. “Letting corporations pollute for free is not a climate solution.” An Energy Innovation study found that by 2050, a methane fee would avoid 172 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually — or the amount produced by over 36 million gasoline-powered cars.
Carper, whose Senate Environment committee approved the fee, also pushed back against reports that negotiations had ended: “@SenatorCarper is working to get robust as possible climate provisions in the reconciliation bill and is in active negotiations trying to ensure that the bill meaningfully reduces greenhouse gas emissions, including with a methane fee,” Carper spokesperson Rachel Levitan tweeted Monday evening.
But Manchin reiterated Monday that he has no interest in punitive measures as part of Congress’ climate plans, saying “you’re not going to be able to penalize yourself” to a cleaner environment.
MISSED THE MARK: The world’s richest countries admitted they failed to fulfill their $100 billion climate finance promise to help developing economies combat climate change. The pledge was meant to run from 2020 to 2025, with advanced economies contributing those fund annually — but a report released Monday by Canadian and German Environment Ministers Jonathan Wilkinson and Jochen Flasbarth shows they won’t be able to hit their target until 2023. The ministers predict $83 billion in climate finance will be raised in 2021, with $113 billion raised annually by 2025.
COP 26 President Alok Sharma tasked Canada and Germany to create a strategy to make sure rich countries deliver on the goal after the countries fell short. Global climate advocates are hoping for a concrete action plan to ensure the goal is met each year to come out of COP 26 next month. Inequality between developing and developed countries is already proving to be a high-tension point going into the global conference, since some of the world’s most vulnerable countries are responsible for the smallest share of global emissions. Karl Mathiesen has more for Pros.
EMISSIONS ALSO OFF TARGET: The economic shutdown of the Covid pandemic may have put a temporary damper on greenhouse gases, but 2020 still saw cumulative carbon levels hit their highest levels ever. Greenhouse gas concentrations reached their highest ever recorded at 413.2 parts per million, increasing faster than the annual average of the previous 10 years, according to a World Meteorological Organization report released Monday. Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all saw increases last year, according to the report, putting global emissions goals “way off track,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said. Read more from the AP.
FERC FOR ALL: FERC Chair Rich Glick wants to ensure the commission’s push to spur clean energy deployment doesn’t undermine its work in promoting regional markets. Current FERC rules meant to spur the deployment of clean energy are largely focused on regional transmission organizations, but Glick fears they can overlook parts of the country without RTOs or push utilities out of the networks in order to avoid clean energy rules.
“The last thing I want to do is create a disincentive for utilities to join RTOs,” Glick told reporters after FERC’s monthly public meeting last week. “And I think one way we get rid of that disincentive is making sure … to the extent possible, [we’re] not treating utilities in non-RTO markets any different than utilities in RTO markets.”
Glick is pushing FERC to reform transmission and accelerate renewable deployment to reach Biden’s net-zero goal for the electricity sector by 2035. Read more from Pro’s Catherine Morehouse.
PUSH IT BACK: FERC will allow the largest U.S. grid operator, the PJM Interconnection, to delay its capacity auction 55 days in order to account for a recent adjustment to how it calculates offer prices. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio opposed the delay fearing it would cause uncertainty for market participants, but utilities in the region supported the move by PJM. Commissioners unanimously approved the delay on Monday, and will set the grid operator’s 2023/2024 capacity auction date at Jan. 25, 2022.
SHORTER, BUT MAYBE NOT SAFER: GenX chemicals, one of the primary shorter-chain PFAS the chemicals industry turned to after agreeing to phase out the use of longer-chain chemicals like PFOA and PFOS, may not be that much safer itself, EPA said formally on Monday. The final toxicity assessment released by EPA set a “reference dose” — the amount of the chemical a person can ingest daily over their lifetime without adverse health effects — that is 25 times lower than the draft assessment EPA produced in 2018, and lower even than what EPA has said is a safe threshold for PFOA and PFOS (although the agency, noted that it is reevaluating the science behind those other assessments and could ratchet them down as well).
The new assessment will be used to craft the drinking water health advisory for GenX that the Biden administration promised as part of its new PFAS strategy last week. The chemical has turned up in a number of drinking water sources, including those of some 200,000 North Carolinians when EPA Administrator Michael Regan was the state’s top environmental official.
EPA’s inspector general also announced Monday that it’s probing the Trump administration’s changes to a rule meant to effectively ban certain harmful PFAS. That will focus namely on the inclusion of new loopholes and the deletion of language clarifying that EPA didn’t need a time-consuming analysis to exert its authority to regulate the toxic chemicals. Annie Snider has more for Pros.
WATER RULES: A federal judge shot down a Trump-era rule that limited states’ ability to block energy infrastructure under the Clean Water Act. Though the Biden administration had raised concerns with the rule, it hadn’t requested the court to shoot it down, asking instead for it to send the rule back for review and reconsideration. But U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup for the Northern District of California agreed with several states and other groups that the rule had substantial flaws that EPA itself had pointed out, prompting him to vacate it.
The 2020 rule was put together after Democratic states tried to use the Clean Water Act to stop energy projects like pipelines and coal export terminals over concerns including climate change. Annie has more for Pros.
WINTER IS COMING: Heating bills this year are likely to be 30 percent higher this winter than last year for natural gas customers, the Energy Information Agency predicted in its Winter Fuels Outlook. About 48 percent of U.S. homes rely on natural gas for heating, and they will spend on average $746 this winter — $172 more than last year. Those numbers could fluctuate depending on the weather this winter, with 50 percent higher heating costs if temperatures are 10 percent colder this year than last.
Propane users are in for a big shock. The 5 percent of homes that use the fuel for heating will likely spend 54 percent more this year than last — a figure that shoots up to 94 percent if this is a colder winter. Propane prices are their highest going into winter in over 10 years, The Wall Street Journal reports.
IN COMMITTEE: The House Natural Resources Committee will have two subpanel hearings today: one on human rights in international conservation at 10 a.m. and another on Indigenous communities and environmental preservation at noon. The House Homeland Security Committee will also have a hearing today on cybersecurity in transportation infrastructure, including pipelines, at 2 p.m.
IF YOU BUILD IT: Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy announced Monday it will build the first U.S. offshore wind turbine blade facility to support Dominion Energy’s planned commercial-scale Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. Siemens Gamesa touted the announcement as the first from a global offshore wind turbine manufacturer in a U.S.-based supply chain. The planned facility in Portsmouth, Va., represents an investment of more than $200 million and will provide about 260 jobs once fully operational, the company said Monday. The Biden administration announced in July it would begin the environmental review for Dominion Energy’s planned 2.6 gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind commercial project, which the utility says is poised to become the largest by capacity currently under development on the East Coast.
— FERC Chairman Richard Glick appointed Renee Terry to be a FERC administrative law judge. Terry first joined FERC’s Office of Administrative Litigation in 2005.
— “Natural gas leaks in Boston are vastly underreported — and could be coming from inside homes, study says,” via The Washington Post.
— “Exxon CEO Floats Pay Hikes to Combat ‘Major’ Employee Attrition,” via Bloomberg.
— “Navistar to pay $52 million, reduce air pollution as part of settlement with feds,” via The Chicago Sun-Times.
— “EU energy ministers to spar over gas strategy,” via POLITICO.
— ”Russia close to using natural gas as weapon in Europe’s gas crunch,” via Reuters.
THAT’S ALL FOR ME!
