With help from Alex Guillén and Kelsey Tamborrino
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— Senate Democrats aren’t exactly thrilled about the how the bipartisan infrastructure plan is coming together, but they aren’t jumping ship either.
— Ted Cruz is maintaining his hold on State Department nominees to protest the Biden administration’s stance on the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
— FERC Commissioner Neil Chatterjee is warning that the agency’s focus on greening the grid could overshadow its mission to keep the lights on.
HAPPY FRIDAY, AT LAST! I’m your host, Matthew Choi. Congrats to Hardy Spire of Kglobal for knowing the MS Stockholm crashed into the Andrea Doria, causing her to capsize. Today’s trivia, some multiple choice! Which country gained independence in the aftermath of World War I: Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania or Romania? 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: America’s climate refugees are here.
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM: After weeks of brouhaha and negotiations, Senate Democrats aren’t exactly jumping with glee at where the bipartisan infrastructure framework stands. Here are some telling quotes POLITICO’s Marianne Levine, Burgess Everett and Laura Barrón López snagged Thursday:
Ben Cardin said he’s “not particularly pleased” with parts of the bipartisan infrastructure package. Kirsten Gillibrand has “no reason to be against it.” Elizabeth Warren said she’ll support it if “it makes some people happier.” When asked if he plans to support the bipartisan deal, Bernie Sanders responded: “I voted for it yesterday, didn’t I?”
But despite their lackluster responses, Democrats are signaling they’ll have enough votes on their side of the aisle to advance the package, with another procedural vote likely next week. As Cardin put it: “There are a lot of things that are happening that I’m unhappy about. … But I’m going to support the package. I think it’s critically important we get the bipartisan package done.”
The negotiators told Marianne, Burgess and Laura that they’re close to getting a deal, even though there’s some festering controversy on public transportation funding. And Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee aren’t satisfied with the numbers on water spending that made it into the latest infrastructure plan, Sam Mintz reports for Pros.
Pulling off the infrastructure deal would be a major win for President Joe Biden, who faced criticism from the left for his adamant desire to broker a bipartisan deal, report Laura and Chris Cadelago. It would lend credence to his campaign promises of being a healer in chief with the acumen to get things done in Congress. Laura and Chris dove into the work behind the scenes by Biden’s aides to court Republican senators to try to pull it off — and the contingency plans they’ve been concocting should things fall apart.
Related: “Pelosi digs in on dual-track approach as bipartisan talks continue,” via James Bikales.
CRUZ ISN’T LETTING GO OF NORD STREAM 2: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), one of the most vocal opponents to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, is still maintaining his hold on several State Department nominations, even as the Biden administration has more or less said the pipeline is a fait accompli. Secretary of State Antony Blinken “has repeatedly said their waiver of sanctions can be rescinded. Well, good. He’s laid out the path forward: Rescind the waiver and actually follow the law,” Cruz told POLITICO’s Alex Ward. “And when they rescind the waiver, I will happily lift my holds. State has it within their power to lift the holds any time they want.”
But a major tenet of the U.S.-Germany deal announced Wednesday was keeping sanctions off the pipeline. It’s an MO that Cruz compared to ceding U.S. administration of the Panama Canal, and it isn’t just Republicans upset with the administration’s handling of the situation.
“[Cruz is] catering to [former President Donald] Trump’s base by accusing Biden of being weak on Russia,” one senior Senate Democratic aide told Alex. Another said: “Biden’s f—up on Nord Stream 2 gave [Cruz] the opening he wanted.”
STONE-MANNING’S FIERY VOTE: As expected, the Senate Energy Committee deadlocked on Tracy Stone-Manning’s nomination for BLM chief, with all Republicans voting against her Thursday. She’ll still make it to a floor vote once Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer files a discharge petition, but that’ll tack on several more hours of floor debate before the chamber can begin considering her selection.
It wasn’t pretty in committee Thursday, Anthony Adragna reports for Pros. Republicans stood firm in their accusations that Stone-Manning was an “eco-terrorist” for associating with environmental extremists charged in a tree spiking incident in the 1980s. Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) went so far as to call her an “attempted murderer,” adding that “this stain on this administration will last for the next three-and-a-half years.”
Stone-Manning was never charged in a crime related to the incident and testified against the two extremists who were. Sen. Joe Manchin, who has not been afraid to oppose Biden picks in the past, dismissed the criticisms of the Republicans on Thursday. “I’ve been unable to find any credible evidence in the exhaustive trial record of the tree-spiking case that shows that Ms. Stone-Manning was an eco-terrorist, that she spiked any trees, that she conspired with eco-terrorists to spike trees or that she lied to the committee,” Manchin said.
All 50 Republicans plan to vote against Stone-Manning, according to Energy Ranking Member John Barrasso, meaning Vice President Kamala Harris will have to come in to break the tie — something she’s already done eight times this year.
HRUBY FOR DUTY: The Senate confirmed Jill Hruby to lead the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration on Thursday. Hruby previously headed the Sandia National Labs — the first woman to lead a security lab — and Secretary Jennifer Granholm praised her as “one of DOE’s very best success stories.”
SHOW SOME LOVE FOR THE LABS: A bipartisan group of 15 senators is pushing for investment into the national labs as part of the infrastructure package. The lawmakers, led by Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), called in a letter to Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for greater investment in everything from better maintained office space to upgraded high-tech lab equipment. “Funding for maintenance, repairs, and the modernization of National Lab infrastructure will ensure our nation’s continued scientific and economic competitiveness; create thousands of high-quality, well-paying construction jobs; and attract the best and brightest scientists to national service,” they wrote.
HOT FERC SUMMER: Departing FERC Commissioner Neil Chatterjee warned that the energy regulator could be heading down a path toward making electricity more expensive and less reliable. In particular, the transition toward clean power — a change Chatterjee said “I wholeheartedly support” — should not overshadow the agency’s core mission.
“It’s crucial that we don’t put ourselves in a position where we are accidentally driving out competitive resources that are needed to maintain reliability. But I fear that’s the direction we are heading,” he told the American Enterprise Institute on Thursday. And though Chatterjee likely won’t be around for FERC’s next monthly meeting in September, he said he was interested in “new ideas and solutions” to ensure reliability as the generation mix evolves.
Chatterjee also said he was “concerned about the villainization of capacity markets, when these clear and obvious trends seem to require us to rely on capacity markets more than ever.” He applauded Chair Richard Glick’s move to hold technical conferences into energy and ancillary services markets, and predicted that there would be breakthrough in energy storage to solve the intermittency issues that limit the market penetration of clean energy technologies. When that happens, he said, “I think it could fundamentally alter the way that Americans generate, distribute and consume power.”
Biden still hasn’t named a successor for Chatterjee — a delay that’s anguishing Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.), who has been pushing legislation to put FERC at the center of greening American energy. “If [the White House] believe as I do — and they have said they do — that climate is existential and we have to act, that appointment should have been pre-cleared and ready to go the minute that Chatterjee stepped down,” Casten told ME. “We don’t have a lot of time and I’m not going to lie to you, I am troubled by the fact that we don’t even know who the nominee is yet.”
Casten introduced a bill this week, the Energy PRICE Act, that would compel FERC to take emissions into consideration while calculating energy rates. He also unveiled a “Hot FERC Summer” social media campaign to raise awareness about the commission, which Anthony discussed in the POLITICO Energy Podcast. Casten, who spoofed the “Hot Girl Summer” lyrics in introducing his measure on the floor this week, also admitted he leans more old school than Megan Thee Stallion. “I will confess, I grew up on 80s hip hop, which has some influences on my musical preferences.” ME got the message.
WHERE BLM LEADS: Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is in Grand Junction, Colorado, today to visit the relocated BLM headquarters as she considers whether to return it to the DC area. Haaland opposed the move West when she was a member of Congress, but Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet of Colorado are pushing for the agency to stay put in their home state. Anthony has more for Pros on Haaland’s visit.
LEASING PAUSE REACHES THE DOG DAYS: Kathleen Sgamma, president of Western Energy Alliance, used Haaland’s visit West to highlight the current pause on new federal oil and gas leases and the still ongoing review of the leasing program. Haaland said the administration planned to release the results of its review in “early summer,” but that timeline appears to have slipped (though she rebutted in Denver “it’s early summer” and the report was coming “soon”). “The ongoing delay is creating a cloud of uncertainty over [the] jobs and the communities that rely on revenues from responsible energy development,” Sgamma wrote.
CASH FOR COAL COUNTRY: The Biden administration is awarding $300 million from the Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration to coal communities to help them weather the transition from fossil fuels and diversify their economies, Zack Colman reports for Pros. The money draws from the Covid relief plan Congress passed in March and would be given in grants to finance regional projects, apprenticeship programs, revolving loan funds, local infrastructure and more.
TRUMP DOJ ENVIRO CHIEF TO FIGHT ‘FEDERAL LEVIATHAN’: Jeffrey Bossert Clark, the Trump-era head of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, is now chief of litigation and director of strategy at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a legal group whose website decries “the Administrative State as an especially serious threat to constitutional freedoms.” Clark said in a statement: “As I’ve witnessed firsthand, the federal leviathan will continue to surge and swell unless its staggering power is confined within proper channels.”
Clark’s time atop ENRD put him in charge of defending regulatory rollbacks at EPA and other agencies — though his highest-profile moment came at the tail end of the administration, when he allegedly floated a plan to Trump to have DOJ fight the election results. Clark has denied any wrongdoing.
WELCOME TO TWITTER: @EPAPressOffice
DEPARTMENT OF MALFEASANCE: “FirstEnergy Corp., the utility at the center of a bribery scheme that brought down the speaker of Ohio’s House of Representatives, agreed to pay a $230 million penalty in a deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors on Thursday,” Kelsey Tamborrino reports for Pros.
And: “The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration on Thursday issued Energy Transfer a notice alleging violations of pipeline safety requirements from the Dakota Access line,” Alex Guillén reports for Pros.
— Mary Nichols, former head of the California Air Resources Board, has joined the Veloz board of directors.
— “Russia rejects aspects of Germany-U.S. accord on Nord Stream 2 pipeline,” via Reuters.
— “Startup Claims Breakthrough in Long-Duration Batteries,” via The Wall Street Journal.
— “In America’s least air-conditioned cities, brutal heat changes some people’s minds,” via The Washington Post.
— “China’s CCPC takes centre stage in Iran, Venezuela oil trade-sources,” via Reuters.
— “Clean energy, storage trade groups plan merger amid Biden climate push,” via POLITICO.
THAT’S ALL FOR ME!
