With help from Ben Lefebvre, Anthony Adragna, Alex Guillén and Aaron Lorenzo
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— House appropriators have churned through most of the spending bills, sending both Interior-Environment and Energy-Water measures to the floor.
— House Republicans seem to be working on their own bill to match Sen. Ted Cruz‘s to prohibit U.S. companies from supplying vessels or technology necessary to build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
— The Trump administration says it found no major greenhouse gas impacts from ending an Obama-era federal coal leasing moratorium.
WELCOME TO THURSDAY! I’m your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ Sergio Espinosa gets the trivia win for naming former first lady Bess Truman, who never held a press conference or gave an interview to a newspaper or magazine. For today, a two-part question: Who was the first president to have an official White House car, and what was the make of that vehicle? Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to ktamborrino@politico.com. Follow us on Twitter @kelseytam, @Morning_Energy and @POLITICOPro.
APPROPRIATIONS UPDATE: The House Appropriations Committee has moved two-thirds of its 12 spending measures for fiscal 2020 to the floor. The panel advanced, by a 30-21 vote, its $37.3 billion Interior-Environment spending package on Wednesday, a day after advancing its $46.4 billion Energy-Water measure.
The committee passed a manager’s amendment on the Interior-Environment measure Wednesday that boosted funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative — something President Donald Trump said he wanted, reversing course on his earlier proposal for cuts — by $15 million, to a total of $320 million. The amendment also added language to the committee report urging EPA to continue issuing grant funding to the Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Centers following recent reports that EPA is planning to discontinue those grants, as Pro’s Alex Guillén reports.
Committee Democrats fought back against Republican amendments that would have reduced EPA’s enforcement budget and would have made it easier to lease Arctic National Wildlife Refuge land for oil exploration.
Landing with a THUD: Now, the House Appropriations Transportation-HUD Subcommittee will mark up a draft spending bill today that would block the Trump administration from finalizing its work on weakened fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and light trucks, as Pro’s Anthony Adragna reports.
Meanwhile, in the Senate: Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who chairs the Appropriations subpanel responsible for funding EPA and Interior, said she hasn’t taken a look at House bills that have bumped up spending levels for both agencies. “I am focused on us, which is plenty to do anyways,” she told reporters.
As for whether she might consider additional funding to address climate change in her bill, Murkowski demurred: “[It’s a] little early to suggest what we may or may not be doing.”
NORD STREAM 2 IN HOUSE PIPELINE: House Republicans may be working on a companion bill to S. 1441 (116), submitted last week by Cruz, that would propose putting sanctions on U.S. technology used in the Russia-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
“We are looking at that issue,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), ranking member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, told ME. “I think we’re going to have legislation on it as well. The pipeline is going to empower Russia. I’m against it.” The pipeline would deliver Russian gas to Germany, which U.S. lawmakers fear could give Russia too much sway over European politics — and would compete with U.S. liquefied natural gas exporters for European market share.
All aboard the pipeline train? Opposition to the pipeline is becoming a bipartisan issue. The Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved a bill, H.R. 2023 (116) from Rep. Denny Heck (D-Wash.), that calls on Congress to “continue to oppose construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and other Russian Federation gas pipelines in northern Europe; and take affirmative diplomatic steps to halt the construction of such pipelines.”
Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) told ME he would be amenable to bringing up a bill to put sanctions on technology used for the pipeline. “I think there would be some interest in it,” he said. Energy Secretary Rick Perry earlier this week predicted smooth sailing for Cruz’s bill.
CALLING ALL GAO: Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether Interior is violating federal law by reviewing land within what had been the boundaries of Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante national monument for potential mineral leasing. The lawmakers point to language in appropriation laws that bar the department from considering leases “as the monument existed on January 20, 2001.”
That language should stand despite the Trump administration’s shrinking the boundaries in 2017, they said. “The Trump administration has clearly violated these clear congressional prohibitions by spending appropriated funds on a range of oil, gas and coal development activities within the 2001 boundaries of Grand Staircase,” the lawmakers said in a press release. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Wednesday told Udall he would look into the matter.
GONE WITH THE WIND CREDIT: Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a staunch wind energy proponent, said Wednesday he’s “very sympathetic” to the plight of those seeking to extend the wind production and solar tax credits lawmakers agreed to phase out in 2015. But he said he couldn’t advocate for the extension after committing to the phase-out last time around. He said he told his colleagues, “If you give us a five-year phase out I won’t ask for any more,” adding Wednesday it would not “be right for me to ask for any more.”
COLLINS ROLLS OUT $300M FOR STORAGE: Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) unveiled a bill Wednesday that would allocate $300 million over five years to help drive research into energy storage. It’s the first in a package of bills that Senate Republicans are rolling out to invest in greenhouse gas emissions-reducing technology. Pro’s Eric Wolff has the details.
BLM ISSUES DRAFT ON COAL LEASING MORATORIUM: BLM issued a draft environmental assessment for the Trump administration’s decision to lift an Obama-era coal leasing moratorium, and it concludes the action wouldn’t have much effect on projected cumulative greenhouse gas emissions, compared to waiting for the moratorium to expire as had been planned, Alex reports. A judge in April said former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had violated the National Environmental Policy Act when he lifted the Obama-era moratorium in 2017 without first undertaking an environmental study.
Legal inception: In the environmental analysis, BLM extended the judge’s logic to argue that Sally Jewell’s original moratorium would have been vulnerable to the same legal challenge as Zinke’s order lifting it — meaning Zinke never should have had to reverse Jewell and this lawsuit never should have happened.
“Like the Zinke Order, the Jewell Order was not accompanied by a NEPA analysis, making it also legally vulnerable under the district court’s reasoning,” BLM wrote in a footnote. “Consequently, the court’s reasoning supports the conclusion that the Jewell Order is a dead letter that renders the Zinke Order superfluous.”
SPEAKING OF NEPA: Ted Boling, associate director for NEPA at the Council of Environmental Quality, said Wednesday the draft proposal to streamline NEPA would be sent to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for review next month, Reuters reports.
GANG’S ALL HERE: FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee, Perry and EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler are set to speak today at the United States Energy Association’s public policy forum on energy policy developments.
Chatterjee will discuss LNG during his remarks, as well as FERC’s international work, including on cybersecurity. He’ll call the environmental benefits of natural gas as a transitional fuel source “something that shouldn’t get lost in this conversation,” according to excerpts of his remarks shared with ME. “Our trading partners have an interest in cleaner fuel sources, and U.S. LNG can deliver for those countries seeking to displace more carbon-intensive fuel sources.”
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Joe Balash, Interior assistant secretary for land and minerals management, will also speak. Draft agenda here.
RANKING THE CANDIDATES: Climate Advisers released its rankings of 2020 presidential candidates, rating them under four criteria: past leadership, whether they are building a mandate for climate action, whether they have proposed detailed environmental policies, and if they’ve signed the “No Fossil Fuel Money” pledge.
The results: Washington Gov. Jay Inslee came in at No. 1, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in second, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Beto O’Rourke tied for third. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Joe Biden were in the back of the pack, due to a lack of climate policy proposals. The group will update its standings as events like the first televised debate occur.
— “Mysterious spike of ozone-destroying chemical is traced to northeast China,” The Washington Post.
— “Maryland bill mandating 50 percent renewable energy by 2030 to become law, but without Gov. Larry Hogan’s signature,” Baltimore Sun.
— “Is modern life poisoning me? I took the tests to find out,” The Guardian.
— “Ex-administrators to lawmakers: Let us help with oversight,” E&E News.
— “Inside a southern coal conference: Pep rallies and fears of an industry’s demise,” InsideClimate News.
— “National Park Service plans to pay full-time staff through entrance fees,” The Hill.
— “An (even more) inconvenient truth: Why carbon credits for forest preservation may be worse than nothing,” ProPublica.
THAT’S ALL FOR ME!
