With help from Eric Wolff, Natasha Bertrand, Zack Colman, Alex Guillén and Daniel Lippman
Editor’s Note: Morning Energy is a free version of POLITICO Pro Energy’s morning newsletter, which is delivered to our subscribers each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day’s biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.
— Some of Joe Biden’s first actions as president included rejoining the Paris climate agreement, revoking a key permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and targeting a host of recent EPA regulations.
— The newly installed Biden administration unveiled the names — acting and otherwise — for leadership positions across the Interior and Energy departments and EPA.
— Biden ordered a freeze on all pending agency regulations, pumping the brakes on all last-minute Trump administration rules.
HELLO! IT’S THURSDAY. I’m your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. Beth Viola of Holland and Knight got the trivia win for knowing former President Bill Clinton’s second Inauguration was the first to be streamed live on the internet. For today: The first inaugural poet recited a poem at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. Who was the poet? Send your tips and trivia answers to [email protected].
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: What the world wants from John Kerry
BIDEN TAKES QUICK EXECUTIVE ACTION: President Joe Biden took several speedy executive actions Wednesday, shortly after taking the oath of office, to reverse signature environmental moves from the Trump administration. Biden signed an order to rejoin the Paris climate agreement and a wide-ranging order on public health, science and the environment, the text of which was released Wednesday night, that called for implementing many of the goals he laid out on the campaign trail, including killing the Keystone XL pipeline once again.
The moves collectively would clear away many of the Trump administration’s deregulatory actions and drive emissions reductions, while calling for overhauls of rules that relaxed mileage requirements and methane emissions, and limited energy efficiency standards for appliances, Alex Guillén, Annie Snider, Eric Wolff and Ben Lefebvre report for Pros.
Among the moves, the Biden administration has identified a litany of recent EPA regulations to be targeted for reconsideration: methane emission limits for new oil and gas sources; rules rolling back tailpipe carbon dioxide limits and revoking California’s special regulatory waiver; the science transparency rule; the Clean Air Act cost-benefit analysis rule and the agency’s finding that mercury limits for power plants were not “appropriate and necessary.”
In addition to reinstating the methane rules for new oil and gas sources, Biden is also directing EPA to propose a companion regulation for existing sources, including the transmission and storage segments of the industry, by September 2021.
The Interior Department is ordered to halt all action related to oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that the Trump administration sold earlier this month, and the agency must conduct a new study on the environmental impact of drilling in the refuge. Biden has also reinstated an interagency working group to develop calculations for the social costs of greenhouse gases, including the well-known social cost of carbon used in many rulemakings to estimate the future damages of climate change, as well as similar figures for other gases, including methane and nitrous oxide.
The White House also released a separate order directing the Office of Management and Budget to come up with improvements to regulatory review, a nod to progressives who have long argued that the White House review process under prior administrations from both parties skewed rules too often in favor of industry interests.
Keystone cuts: Richard Prior, head of TC Energy’s Keystone XL unit, told staff on Wednesday afternoon that Biden’s decision to revoke the permit would mean job cuts at the company, according to an email to staff seen by ME. “Over 1,000 positions will be eliminated in the coming weeks, the majority of these unionized workers representing the building trades,” the email said.
The Keystone decision marks one of the first challenges to Biden’s environmental agenda, which he has said will provide good-paying union jobs as part of the transition to clean energy. “On Day 1, you’re giving a pink slip to union workers,” one industry source told ME. The pipeline “could have been the gold standard for how you build energy infrastructure in America,” the person said, given its plan to achieve net-zero emissions across operations and support from some of Canada’s First Nations groups.
Several Republican senators led by Steve Daines of Montana plan to introduce legislation that would congressionally authorize the Keystone XL pipeline as well as a resolution calling on Biden to submit the Paris agreement to the Senate for ratification (though the voluntary accord was in no small part designed to avoid triggering the need for Senate approval). Neither is expected to advance under Democratic control of the Senate, but the moves are an early signal of the partisan fights to come.
HAVING A BALL: Inauguration Day might have been very different in D.C. this year, but the time-honored tradition of decked-out inaugural balls lives on — at least virtually. Clean Energy for Biden hosted a virtual inaugural ball Wednesday night, which included remarks from Energy Secretary-designate Jennifer Granholm, White House domestic climate chief Gina McCarthy, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and new Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock. Biden has “committed to clean power in 2035 and he’s committed to net-zero in 2050,” McCarthy said, “and we are going to get there because we will not be stopped.”
Granholm highlighted her own focus on creating jobs: “Why is it, for example, that we have sort of ceded the territory to our economic competitors,” she said. “Why aren’t we building the solar panels in addition to installing them? Why aren’t we building the windmills in addition to putting them up? … Why aren’t we building the transformers for the grid that we want. I’m just saying, there are huge numbers of jobs in this clean energy economy.” The former governor also pointed to the public lands under the Interior Department that “will allow for us to do deployment in a way that really puts people to work.”
Also delivering remarks at the event, which occurred in a virtual banquet hall: celebrities Billie Eilish, Jeff Bridges and Don Cheadle; Moms Clean Air Force’s Heather McTeer Toney; billionaire Tom Steyer; Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper; and Reps. Paul Tonko, Yvette Clarke and Debbie Dingell.
CHANGING OF THE GUARD: The Biden team rolled out a host of names that will staff up the administration:
— Energy: The Biden administration unveiled senior staffers for the Energy Department today, Pro’s Zack Colman reports. Kelly Speakes-Backman, who was running the Energy Storage Association trade group, will be principal deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy. University of Pennsylvania’s Jennifer Wilcox will be principal deputy assistant secretary for fossil energy. Shalanda Baker, a Northeastern University law, public policy and urban affairs professor, will be deputy director of energy justice, and Jennifer Jean Kropke, who directed workforce and environmental engagement for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 11, will direct the energy jobs office.
— Interior: The administration announced 20 people who will be staffing the department, representing a mix of former officials in the Obama administration, former Democratic congressional staffers and staff members from environmental and left-leaning policy groups, Ben reports. Included on the list are: Jennifer Van der Heide, the long-time chief of staff for Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), who would continue in that role if Haaland is confirmed to lead Interior; Laura Daniel Davis, former chief of staff to Interior Secretaries Sally Jewell and Ken Salazar, to be principal deputy assistant secretary for land and mineral management; and Marissa Knodel, a former legislative counsel at Earthjustice, to be a senior adviser at Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees offshore drilling. Scott de la Vega, the current associate solicitor for general law, will lead the agency in an acting capacity.
— EPA: Jane Nishida, EPA’s principal deputy assistant administrator for the Office of International and Tribal Affairs, will lead the agency in an acting capacity while Michael Regan goes through his confirmation. She has been at EPA since 2011, and was nominated in 2014 to run OITA but was never confirmed by the Senate.
— International: Andrew Light will be the principal deputy assistant secretary at DOE’s Office of International Affairs, Zack reports. Light served in the State Department during the Obama administration and has been a distinguished senior fellow at the World Resources Institute. Elan Strait confirmed that he will return to the State Department as a senior adviser on climate issues. He served on the State climate negotiating team under then-Secretary John Kerry, and later became director of U.S. climate campaigns for the World Wildlife Fund.
DOE ADRIFT? For about three hours until the White House made David Huizenga the acting head of the Energy Department, senior staff there had no clear idea of who was in charge of the agency — and therefore the nation’s nuclear stockpile. That’s because former Secretary Dan Brouillette failed to designate a leader when he resigned, two DOE officials told ME. Huizenga, the associate principal deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages U.S. nuclear weapons, will be DOE’s caretaker while Granholm awaits her confirmation.
Both Brouillette and Deputy Secretary Mark Menezes sent farewell emails to all staff on Wednesday morning thanking them for their service and listing the agency’s accomplishments, but neither outlined who would take the reins until the Senate confirms a replacement. Neither did the acting NNSA administrator, William Bookless, who bid farewell to his staff earlier this week, said an official familiar with the internal conversations and another senior official inside the department. The Energy Department did not return a request for comment.
“The Department of the Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration perform multiple Primary Mission Essential Functions to support the national security of the United States,” the official said. “In the absence of clearly defined acting leadership, the career professionals of the respective organizations would spend wasted time attempting to determine who has the ultimate authority in the event of a national emergency.”
INSIDE REGAN’S FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: EPA Administrator nominee Michael Regan reported no income outside of his position as secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality and that he still carries significant student loan debt, according to his newly released financial disclosure. Regan reported holding between $15,001 and $50,000 in student loan debt incurred in 2004, around the time he obtained a master’s degree in public administration from George Washington University. He reported holdings at Prudential Financial worth between $1,001 and $15,000, Alex reports.
CHAMBER ADOPTS NEW METHANE STANCE: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it would support directly regulating methane, a potent greenhouse gas, as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. The shift comes as Biden enters office with a vow to revisit oil and gas methane standards. It also brings the powerful business trade organization in line with several big oil companies that prodded the Trump administration to issue rules for methane. Trump’s EPA instead opted to scuttle Obama-era standards by leaving limits on volatile organic compounds in place, which left a sizable chunk of methane emissions along the oil and gas supply chain unregulated.
The Chamber position, however, leaves a bit of wiggle room. It said any methane regulation must “not be duplicative of existing regulations while preserving state regulatory programs.” Some states that had pushed back against the Obama-era rules said their own programs were sufficient — an argument environmentalists rejected, charging that state programs in production-heavy states were often too weak. The Chamber position also said rules must not force use of certain technologies. Smaller drillers said the Obama rules demanded installation of a leak detection kit that was too costly for some drillers.
— Amanda Hall is now legislative director for Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.). She most recently was a senior adviser at Interior. Faith Vander Voort is now comms director for Valadao. She most recently was deputy director of the office of congressional and legislative affairs at Interior. Hannah Cooke is now scheduler and financial administrator for Valadao. She most recently was a special assistant to former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.
— Elizabeth “Tate” Bennett left the White House earlier this month to become a senior vice president on Forbes Tate’s government affairs team, POLITICO Influence reports. She will register to lobby. Bennett joined the Trump administration last year as a special assistant to the president for agriculture and prior to that worked at EPA under former Administrator Scott Pruitt as well as at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
— Andrea Woods joined the Consumer Brands Association as manager of media relations. She previously was an associate director of communications at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
— “Democrats officially control the Senate after final members are sworn in,” via POLITICO.
— “Voters back range of potential Biden environment policies by comfortable margins,” via Morning Consult.
— “Permitting for big U.S. offshore wind farm will resume ‘very, very soon’: Avangrid CEO,” via Reuters.
— “World’s biggest offshore wind producer moves into hydrogen,” via Bloomberg.
— “Pa. shale gas production returns to year-ago levels as drillers open the valves,” via S&P Global Market Intelligence.
— “Interior approves major pipeline initiative in Wyoming to help advance carbon capture, EOR,” via Casper Star-Tribune.
THAT’S ALL FOR ME!
