With help from Anthony Adragna and Eric Wolff
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— The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a markup today on its surface transportation bill that includes a title dedicated to climate change.
— Democratic presidential hopefuls will convene in Detroit for the second round of debates tonight.
— Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) teamed up on draft legislation to address how climate policy would affect vulnerable communities.
GOOD MORNING! IT’S TUESDAY. I’m your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. Bracewell’s Frank Maisano gets the win today. The New York Journeyman Printers successfully led the first union strike over wages. For today: Who did George Washington commission to design the basic plan creating D.C. as the nation’s capital? Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to ktamborrino@politico.com.
TOUCHING THE SURFACE: EPW will hold a markup today on the panel’s draft five-year highway bill that was released Monday. The largely bipartisan, $287 billion surface transportation bill contains a first-of-its-kind title dedicated to addressing climate change — it proposes raising spending levels by 27 percent in part to pay for $10 billion in climate-focused programs and policies, as Pro’s Tanya Snyder reports.
What else is in the bill? The measure would provide $4.9 billion over five years, through both formula and competitive grant funding, to help states improve the resiliency of their infrastructure to natural disasters and extreme weather. Under the measure, the Transportation Department would oversee interagency coordination and reviews required under the National Environmental Policy Act before issuing a single decision for the permitting process, signed by all relevant agencies, within two years, Pro’s Anthony Adragna reports.
McConnell ‘receptive‘: EPW Chairman John Barrasso said he met with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who he described as “receptive” to moving the package this year. “He thinks it’d be good to do bipartisan legislation of this size,” the Wyoming Republican told reporters.
The big outstanding question: Barrasso said he plans to meet with the leaders of the Finance Committee about financing the legislation and reiterated his expectation to pay for it. “This needs to be paid for,” he said.
What about today? Barrasso said to expect a manager’s package to be considered and approved. He expected the overall markup would last an hour and a half or two hours.
Climate hawk aboard: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, an EPW member, said the climate section of the bill didn’t go far enough but voiced support for it and Barrasso. “He’s just personally a very honorable guy, so I think that he feels considerable pressure to try to get something done and where we can find places where it’s not anathema to the Wyoming oil, gas and coal industry, I think he’s sincere,” the Rhode Island Democrat told reporters.
DEBATE PREP: Ten Democratic presidential hopefuls take the stage tonight from Michigan — where environmental issues span PFAS contamination, Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline and electric vehicles’ impact on automakers.
It remains to be seen just how much of the conversation tonight will focus on those issues. (Recall: Last month’s debates devoted only several minutes on climate.) But expect the candidates to weave at least some of the issues into their responses. For example, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who is on stage tonight, released her trade agenda on Monday that touches on climate change.
Warren’s plans list nine separate criteria a country would have to meet before negotiating a trade deal with the U.S., including eliminating all domestic fossil fuel subsidies and fulfilling commitments from the Paris climate agreement. Warren would also attempt to impose a “border carbon adjustment” — an additional fee on imports made with carbon-intensive processes.
Debating tonight: Montana Gov. Steve Bullock; South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg; former Maryland Rep. John Delaney; former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.); former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke; Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio); Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); Warren; and Marianne Williamson.
Related: The Frontline Detroit Coalition — made up of groups including the East Michigan Environmental Action Council, the Sunrise Movement Climate Justice Alliance and state chapters of NextGen and the Sierra Club — will host a rally and march today call on candidates to back environmental provisions as outlined in the Green New Deal.
ACROSS THE AIRWAVES: The super PAC supporting Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s presidential campaign plans to push a TV ad attacking Inslee’s opponents — former Vice President Joe Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, Harris and Sanders — during the debates. The six-figure ad says the contenders for the Democratic nomination have not made climate change a high priority, POLITICO’s Daniel Strauss reports.
HARRIS, AOC JOIN TOGETHER ON CLIMATE BILL: Harris, who takes the debate stage Wednesday, offered a new glimpse into her plans for tackling climate change. The California Democrat, who has not released a comprehensive plan on the issue, joined forces with Ocasio-Cortez to announce draft legislation to address how climate policy would affect vulnerable communities.
The proposal aims to help “frontline communities,” which they define as including low-income communities, indigenous peoples, communities of color, depopulated rural communities and others that will feel the impacts of climate change most acutely, Anthony reports.
DEMS CALL FOR ANWR DOCS: Four senior House Natural Resources Democrats called on the Interior Department to hand over a host of documents and communications related to changes to a draft environmental assessment that minimized potential risks from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Anthony reports. The letter follows a POLITICO Magazine report that political appointees made changes to the work of career scientists in a draft environmental impact statement as part of their push to get drilling off the ground in ANWR as quickly as possible.
NO CHANGE OF PLANS: House Natural Resources ranking member Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said Monday he is still planning to retire at the end of his current term, erasing any doubt he would reverse course after teasing last week that he’s heard from many in the state who want him to stick around longer. “I will not run in 2020,” Bishop said on KSL Newsradio on Monday. Anthony reports more for Pros.
DEM REPORT POINTS TO PERRY SAUDI MEETINGS: Energy Secretary Rick Perry and DOE officials met regularly with executives from IP3, an energy consulting firm with close ties to former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn that is seeking to sell nuclear technology to the Saudis with no non-proliferation safeguards, according to a report released by the House Oversight Committee. The report cites emails indicating IP3 had at least two meetings with Perry, Pro’s Eric Wolff reports, including one with Perry and President Donald Trump, and multiple meetings with other DOE officials or members of Trump’s transition team between November 2016 and June of this year.
IP3 hasn’t seen the report: A spokeswoman for IP3 said the company hadn’t had access to the report as of Monday evening, but they said that there are strict rules for trading nuclear energy technology to other nations. “There are apparently many misunderstandings regarding those rules, which the U.S. Department of Energy can clarify,” the company said in a statement. “Unfortunately, there are conclusions in the Committee report (as described in the Committee press release) that link these misunderstandings with conspiracy theories and allegations to create an arbitrary and contrived story that doesn’t reflect the reality that occurred.”
WHEELER TOUTS DEREGULATION: EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler touted his agency’s deregulatory action during remarks before refiners Monday at the Philadelphia-area Monroe Energy, NBC 10 reports. “Under President Trump, we have finalized 41 deregulatory actions, saving Americans more than $3.5 billion over the last 2 and a half years,” Wheeler said, according to NBC 10. “We have 47 additional actions projected to save billions more.” Reuters also reports that Wheeler told reporters the agency plans to weigh in soon on 2018 petitions to obtain small refinery waivers under the Renewable Fuel Standard. “We’re going through them,” he told reporters. “We hope to be processing them and making decisions in the next few weeks and month at the most.”
MASS. GAS EXPLOSION LAWSUIT SETTLED: Columbia Gas and its subsidiary NiSource will pay residents and businesses of Massachusetts’ Merrimack Valley $143 million to settle a lawsuit stemming from the Sept. 13, 2018, gas explosions and fires in dozens of homes that killed one person and displaced thousands, Pro’s Zack Colman reports. The settlement for the class-action lawsuit is pending court approval, and is separate from the $80 million settlement reached with the cities of Lawrence, Andover and North Andover and another with the family of an 18-year-old killed.
REPORT: MINERS STAND IN TRAIN’S PATH: A group of former Blackjewel miners stood in the way of an oncoming train Monday that was carrying coal away from the Cloverlick Mine 1 in Harlan County, Ky., reports WYMT. According to the news station, the miners forced the train to a standstill. The outlet reports the mine is owned by Revelation Energy LLC, and its affiliate, Blackjewel LLC, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month, causing the miners to go without pay.
— “Democrats swore off donations from lobbyists and fossil fuel execs. But some are skirting their own rules,” via The Washington Post.
— “‘People are dying’: How the climate crisis has sparked an exodus to the U.S.,” via The Guardian.
— “U.S. utilities to boost capital spending in shift away from coal,” via S&P Global Market Intelligence.
— “Democrat pushes FDA to act after ‘forever chemicals’ found in bottled water,” via The Hill.
— “State admits it was wrong to resist federal crackdown on oil tank pollution,” via the Press Herald.
THAT’S ALL FOR ME!
