With help from Catherine Morehouse
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— The Biden DOI is getting heat over a proposed access road in Alaska that environmentalists and Indigenous groups fear could irreparably harm local communities. But the road would allow access to critical minerals needed for the clean energy transition.
— Sunrun’s Mary Powell and Ed Fenster chatted with POLITICO about the solar industry’s role in combating climate change and the federal government’s role in supporting the sector.
— The House Oversight Committee is upping the pressure on Big Oil, demanding internal information from major companies and trade groups on their messaging around climate change.
HAPPY FRIDAY! I’m your host, Matthew Choi. Congrats to Ryan Serote of Meguire Whitney for knowing the train in “Murder on the Orient Express” got stuck in Yugoslavia (specifically between Vinkovci and Brod in modern Croatia). For today’s trivia, where did Pete Campbell go to college in “Mad Men”? 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: Digging into Big Oil’s Dark Side.
WHERE DOES THIS ROAD GO: The Biden administration has publicly vowed to center Indigenous needs in its management of U.S. lands. “I want the era when tribes were on the back burner to be over,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland told a group of Indigenous journalists in March on her first day in office. But when that priority is at odds with the growing demand for critical minerals, the administration has been less emphatic, reports Adam Federman for POLITICO Magazine in partnership with Type Investigations.
The administration appears to be going through with the approval process for the Ambler Road project, which got a green light in the twilight days of the Trump administration and would pass through much of Alaska to the Ambler mining district. The area is rich in mineral deposits, especially copper and zinc — a growing priority for the administration as it pushes for clean technology that needs rare earths, from solar power to electric vehicle batteries. Global demand for rare earths is expected to skyrocket, and there are mounting calls for domestic production as ethical and political qualms grow over importing minerals from places like China.
But Indigenous groups are sounding the alarm over the road, saying it could be a major — and potentially existential — disruption to their millennia-old way of life. Five Native villages along the proposed road corridor and the Tanana Chiefs Conference sued the Interior Department over its handling of the Ambler Road environmental impact statement, arguing the department didn’t meet its obligations to meaningfully consult with tribes, Adam reports. Environmental groups are also bringing another lawsuit against the department saying it didn’t have the necessary information to adequately conduct an environmental analysis.
Adam dug deep into the Trump administration’s work to approve the access road, poring over documents and speaking to several Interior employees involved in the process, finding that the Bureau of Land Management’s then-Alaska state director “downplayed the significance of subsistence hunting and fishing during the Ambler environmental review and pushed career employees to modify their findings that showed the potential for widespread environmental damage,” Adam writes.
SOLAR CHIEFS WEIGH IN: Pro’s Kelsey Tamborrino chatted with Sunrun’s newest top executive, Mary Powell, and executive chairman, Ed Fenster, about the industry’s potential boon amid proposals under consideration for Democrats’ reconciliation package. Powell and Fenster touched on how federal policies can support the industry at a time of explosive growth and the role solar has in fending off climate catastrophe.
Fenster made a pitch for investment tax credit extensions, which recently advanced out of the House Ways and Means Committee. He said these credits have already played an instrumental role in solar’s growth. He also pushed for extension of the credits to energy storage, independent of its ties to solar. “Making [ITCs] more generous and longer in duration makes a lot of sense. Extending it to storage makes a lot of sense. Perhaps creating a more generous version of it for low-income customers makes a lot of sense,” he said.
And while government policy has been a major peg, Powell said over the past 10 years, the “gravitational pull toward commonsense is overwhelming,” with increased demand amid the growth of more reliable solar technology. “Policy, yes, absolutely important,” she said. “At the federal level, it’s nice to see the direction we’re headed in, but fundamentally, the growth is going to continue to grow exponentially because it truly is a consumer-led revolution.” Read more from the interview here.
THE DISINFO PROBE: House Oversight Democrats are upping the ante on their probe into major oil and gas companies. Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney and Environment Subcommittee Chair Ro Khanna wrote to the heads of BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, requesting they testify at an Oct. 28 hearing on whether the industry spread disinformation on climate change. They also asked the companies and business groups to hand over all internal documents and communications since Nov. 30, 2015, on climate science and policy, clean energy and the role the groups played in “causing, mitigating, or responding to climate change.”
“The real purpose of the hearings is to stop the companies from engaging in this kind of misinformation campaign,” Khanna told Pro’s Zack Colman. Khanna added that the committee wasn’t ruling out subpoenaing the industry leaders if they refuse to show. Read more from Zack.
BARRASSO BLASTS FERC: The Senate Energy ranking member blasted FERC over what he said were delays in the commission’s approval of natural gas projects, expressing concern in a letter to the commission that environmental reviews were jeopardizing certificate proceedings. FERC voted in February to revisit its 1999 gas infrastructure policy statement, and Chair Richard Glick is hoping to integrate more climate and environmental justice considerations. But John Barrasso has expressed concerns about additional delays in certificate proceedings due to these lengthy reviews.
Barrasso also pressed the commission on why it took so long to approve an emergency 90-day certificate for the Spire STL pipeline, whose initial authorization was vacated in federal court. Barrasso asked why FERC didn’t act “sooner or more definitively” in approving the emergency certificate, particularly ahead of winter when natural gas demand is expected to go up. Read more on the letter from Pro’s Catherine Morehouse.
THE ELECTRIC HOUSE: A cohort of 14 green, clean energy and housing groups are pushing for legislation on decarbonizing households to be part of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. The groups, which include American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Earthjustice, Rewiring America and League of Conservation Voters, wrote to Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, as well as in their respective energy committee chairs, insisting the HOPE for HOMES Act and the Zero-Emission Homes Act be included in the final reconciliation package.
The two bills focus on improving home energy efficiency by replacing or retrofitting appliances. The signatories are pushing for no less than $20 billion for the two measures. Read the letter here.
AND WE’LL NEVER HAVE ROYALTIES: Miners are pushing back against proposals on the Hill to impose royalties on mining on federal lands, Reuters reports. The House Natural Resources Committee advanced a measure to set royalties on new and existing mines, subjecting the industry to similar schemes as federal-land oil and gas extraction. The proposal went forward as part of the committee’s reconciliation legislation.
But miners say the royalties would impede domestic critical mineral extraction when the country needs it most. “The race for electric vehicles and electrification of the economy requires metals and mining, and that needs to be incentivized, not stalled,” Rich Nolan, head of the National Mining Association, told Reuters.
BYE, BYE LOOPHOLE: EPA rescinded a controversial Trump-era water pollution guidance that environmental groups said offered a loophole for industrial pollution. The initial guidance was crafted to implement a Supreme Court decision in County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, which determined indirect pollution that is the “functional equivalent” of a direct discharge into protected waters is subject to Clean Water Act regulations.
EPA water chief Radhika Fox said the Trump-era guidance was “inconsistent with EPA’s authority to limit pollution discharges to our waters.” Pro’s Annie Snider has more.
GRANHOLM GOES EURO: Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is hopping across the pond Sunday to attend the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference in Vienna. Granholm will be leading the U.S. delegation and emphasize the administration’s support for nuclear in decarbonizing electricity and for international cooperation in establishing nuclear safeguards.
ON FERC’S DOCKET: FERC on Thursday announced two new technical conferences slated to take place in November. One will focus on how gas companies can mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions. The all-day virtual conference, scheduled for Nov. 19, will be led by staff, and comes as Democrats on the commission grapple with how to account for the impact pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure can have on the climate. The other, scheduled for Nov. 15, will examine issues related to regional transmission planning.
PICK A SIDE: A number of prominent environmental leaders are directly appealing to members of the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to support Democrats’ reconciliation package — thereby breaking with the trade groups, which have opposed the spending bill. The officials from groups such as the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council and Public Citizen made their case in an open letter Thursday.
The letter is addressed to CEOs who have openly expressed support for climate change-combating action, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions to below 50 percent of 2005 levels by 2030 and shooting for 100 percent clean electricity.
“Now, we are writing to you at a defining moment for our country and the planet. We have a question for you, and you have a choice to make: Are you still in?” the letter reads. “While we know you have pledged to fight for climate action, you are also connected to a massive effort to sabotage and gut the critically important set of climate investments.”
The Chamber has dismissed the reconciliation plan as a partisan, kitchen sink bill that goes far beyond the scope of climate — into areas like Medicare expansion and education. The Chamber asserts the bipartisan infrastructure package is a more productive medium for climate policy.
FORD PUMPS ITS ELECTRIC MUSCLE: Ford is facing growing demand for its flagship electric vehicle, the F-150 Lightning, and is planning to invest $250 million and add 450 jobs at three plants to help meet demand. Ford executives made the announcement at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center, joined by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Reps. Debbie Dingell and Dan Kildee. Ford’s “efforts will help us reach my statewide goal to be carbon-neutral by 2050 and create good-paying jobs along the way,” Whitmer said in a statement Thursday.
The Biden administration has been heralding the American-designed electric truck as the future, with high profile officials, including President Joe Biden himself, seen joy-riding in the truck. The Associated Press has more from Michigan.
HOUSTON’S CARBON HUB: The ExxonMobil plan to build a massive carbon capture, utilization and storage hub on the Gulf of Mexico just got a wide swath of industry support from several high-emitting companies in the area. Eleven companies, including Dow, Chevron and Valero, announced they were in discussion with Exxon on how to launch the carbon removal hub, which they predict could store 50 million tons of carbon dioxide per year by 2030 and 100 tons by 2040.
“Houston can achieve our net zero goals by working together, and it’s exciting to see so many companies have already come together to talk about making Houston the world leader in carbon capture and storage,” House Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a statement. Read more from the initiative’s website.
— “This grid technology could make or break Biden’s solar plans,” via E&E News.
— “National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy: Views from a White House Official on Seizing the Day, Using Your Voice, and Tackling Climate Change,” via The Madam Policy Podcast.
— “White House economists say a clean energy transition will lower consumer costs,” via CNN.
— “Hezbollah Brings Iranian Fuel to Lebanon as Shortages Deepen Crisis,” via The Wall Street Journal.
THAT’S ALL FOR ME!
