With help from Alex Guillén, Anthony Adragna, Eric Wolff and Kelsey Tamborrino.
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— Climate was a major discussion point at the G-7 summit this past weekend, but despite the urgent rhetoric, the group tiptoed around new commitments.
— The White House is going after Trump-era regulations, but rolling them back could take years.
— Lawmakers want Biden to come down hard on Russia following the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack.
HAPPY MONDAY! I’m your host, Matthew Choi, back from a refreshing stay in the Colorado wilderness. Feel free to re-up your email from last week if I never got back to you.
And now some trivia: Congrats to Jack Bagley of The Bagley Group for knowing Ted Kaufman was the longtime aide to President Joe Biden who completed the remainder of his last Senate term when he took up the vice presidency. For today: What university did Dickie Greenleaf attend in “The Talented Mr. Ripley”? 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: Gina McCarthy’s climate reality check.
WHAT HAPPENS IN CORNWALL: President Joe Biden just finished a love-fest of a G-7 summit, where global leaders showered him with praise. Amid the buddy-buddying on the English coast, the leaders agreed to certain climate goals and actions, with a hearty chunk of the group’s Sunday communiqué devoted to the topic. But consensus on other major climate issues remains elusive. Here are some of the key takeaways:
— America’s back, baby. World leaders welcomed Biden as a partner with a common goal — a major shift from the stand-offs under President Donald Trump, who was far less enthused about climate action, to say the least. Entire sections of the group’s communiqué reflected White House rhetoric, and Biden said the U.S. had had a president who didn’t believe in climate change, though he stopped short of naming Trump.
— Helping the developing world: The group committed to meeting its past pledges of $100 billion per year from the developed world to help poorer countries reduce carbon emissions and deal with climate change. It’s an old target — crafted back in 2009 — but the Covid pandemic swung that train off its tracks, and meeting the goal is a major test of the group’s credibility. The new goal goes through to 2025.
— A Green Revolution: The G-7 leaders said 2021 would be a “turning point for our planet,” reiterating goals to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, halve emissions by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. That’s not terribly new considering the spate of commitments released ahead of Biden’s climate leaders summit in April, and some goals still weren’t immediately clear. But the G-7 leaders did agree “to conserve or protect at least 30 percent of our land and oceans by 2030.” Biden set a conservation goal for the United States in one of his first executive orders upon taking office.
— What are we doing about coal?: One of the fuzzy areas was in the G-7’s approach to coal. While the group vowed to end “new direct government support for unabated international thermal coal power generation by the end of 2021,” the leaders were less clear on a phase out date for overall coal generation. The group said it was committing to making their domestic energy sectors “overwhelmingly decarbonized” in the 2030s, but there were no new goals on that front outside the countries’ nationally determined contributions. And there are caveats, allowing “limited exceptions” that are in line with net-emissions goals.
— Or carbon border fees?: They made a fleeting non-reference in the group’s communiqué, with a commitment to prevent “carbon leakage” (producers fleeing to states with less strict carbon requirements). EU leaders wanted the group on board with its plans for a carbon border tax, but Japan and the U.S. were hesitant to sign on, Karl Mathiesen, Jakob Hanke Vela and Esther Webber report for Pros.
— Tightening the belt (and road): The group announced an infrastructure scheme to rival China’s Belt and Road initiative, which has been criticized in the West for investing in carbon-intensive projects and locking developing countries in debt. But it was unclear if the Build Back Better World (or B3W for the hip kids) has new money to match the billions of public funding China puts into its cornerstone foreign policy. Karl and Anna Isaac have more.
For some overarching takeaways from the summit, POLITICO’s Ryan Heath has you covered, with insights from our U.S. and European teams.
UNIFIED AGENDA: The White House outlined its regulatory priorities Friday morning, focusing on rollbacks of Trump-era environmental rules that prioritized deregulation. But the administration also acknowledged many rollbacks could take years.
“A final drinking water regulation for the best-understood toxic “forever chemicals” isn’t expected until 2024, revisions to federal oil and gas leasing won’t be proposed by Interior until May 2022 and EPA wouldn’t even hazard a guess for how long it would take to craft a new definition of streams and wetlands protected under the Clean Water Act, a new rule limiting carbon emissions from existing power plants or a new regulation governing lead in drinking water,” Pro’s Annie Snider, Alex Guillén, Kelsey Tamborrino and Anthony Adragna report in their issue-by-issue breakdown of the administration’s first Unified Agenda.
Related from the Ag team: “USDA seeks to undo Trump-era efforts to open up Tongass to logging, development,” via Tatyana Monnay.
EJ EXPERT GETS NOD FOR SUPERFUND OFFICE: The White House has nominated Carlton Waterhouse to run EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management, which oversees the expansive Superfund program and other waste issues. Waterhouse, who has been the top political appointee at OLEM since January, first joined EPA after graduating from Penn State and Howard University Law School in the 1990s. More recently, he’s taught law at Howard and joined the board of the Environmental Law Institute. Waterhouse has done a lot of work on environmental justice — a key area for Superfund oversight given that contaminated sites are often located in or near communities of color and poor communities.
Waterhouse may draw extra attention for his other area of expertise: critical race theory and reparations. In addition to his environmental work, Waterhouse has written a number of law journal articles in the past 15 years on those subjects, and before joining EPA was working on a book on “the historic and contemporary role of the United States Supreme Court in maintaining racial hierarchy,” according to his Howard University biography.
Senate Republicans have delayed the confirmation of another Biden nominee, Kiran Ahuja to run the Office of Personnel Management, over her own past focus on critical race theory, which argues that racism is systemically built into legal and political systems instead of merely being represented in the actions of individuals. (For more, check out this Washington Post deep dive on CRT.)
EPA spokesman Nick Conger called Waterhouse “highly qualified” in a statement Sunday. “His prior experience at EPA and decades of work to address historical racial injustices and to fight for climate justice position him to lead programs like Superfund and Brownfields to protect all communities from pollution,” Conger said. “EPA looks forward to swift action by the Senate to confirm Dr. Waterhouse.”
EPA offices still awaiting a nominee: Air, enforcement, research, finance.
FOR LEASE: The Interior Department is planning lease sales for offshore wind in the New York Bight — the first competitive offshore wind lease sale of the Biden administration. The planned sale could provide enough space for up to 7 gigawatts of wind energy generation — enough to power more than 2.6 million homes, Kelsey reports.
FERC READY FOR YOUR TRANSMISSION: FERC’s open meeting on Thursday will feature the commission’s first baby steps on resetting transmission policy. The commission will launch new dockets aimed at improving collaboration with the states, which play a key role in siting the long lines Chair Rich Glick says will be needed to bring more renewables into the grid. FERC will also launch a docket on how states can plan and pay for transmission lines, an effort to unclog long-standing bottlenecks in transmission construction. Glick has promised to announce a roadmap for an overhaul of federal transmission policy this summer, and this agenda appears to leave such a major announcement for the July meeting (FERC does not hold a meeting in August).
Natural Gas pipelines: There appears to be little chance of a repeat of last month’s fireworks over new gas pipeline certification projects. None of the three pipeline projects represent major new undertakings that could lead to additional greenhouse gas emissions.
PUTIN HIM IN THE HOT SEAT: Lawmakers from both parties are urging the administration to be more assertive in its response to cyberattacks originating in the former Soviet Union, including a direct confrontation with Russia’s Vladimir Putin during his summit with Biden this week. The Russian government has largely turned a blind eye to the cyberattacks, with some malign activities receiving the blessing of the state, according to U.S. intelligence.
“I equate it to a common burglar. We put locks on our house … but you also want to make sure you’re catching the burglar and punishing the burglar,” said Senate Homeland Security Chair Gary Peters (D-Mich.).
Biden and his allies levied stern warnings toward the Kremlin following the Colonial Pipeline attack, and the president said he plans to raise the issue with Putin. “You can expect … for the president to raise it very directly and make clear our expectations of the government of Russia to address the threat that is emanating from its territory,” a senior administration official told reporters Friday. Martin Matishak has more for Pros.
RELATED LETTER FROM MOSCOW: “Putin’s Spring of Discontent is Over. Will It Matter?” via Michele Berdy in POLITICO Magazine.
BACK ON THE HILL: Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is back on the Hill Tuesday to go over the department’s budget request with the Senate Energy Committee. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will be with a Senate Appropriations panel Wednesday to go over her department’s budget request.
Elsewhere on the Hill: House Natural Resources is having a subcommittee hearing Tuesday on environmental justice in coal-producing communities through the energy transition. Meanwhile, House Homeland Security will meet Tuesday to go over the federal response to the Colonial Pipeline attack, with CISA’s executive assistant director for cybersecurity Eric Goldstein and TSA’s assistant administrator for surface operations Sonya Proctor testifying.
GREENS MEAN BUSINESS: The Sunrise Movement and Evergreen Action have purchased NoClimateNoDeal.com, a platform from which they’ll track Democratic politicians who commit to opposing infrastructure legislation without sufficiently strong climate change provisions. By their count, at least nine senators and 11 House lawmakers have made commitments along the lines of Sen. Ed Markey’s rallying cry that bears the name of the site.
— The American Petroleum Institute brought on Amy Travieso Loveng, Alex Dominguez, and Owen McDonough to its federal relations team. Travieso Loveng was previously chief of staff for Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas). Dominguez was an adviser at EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation and an alum of former Rep. Jim Renacci (R-Ohio). McDonough was director of regulatory and scientific affairs at The Fertilizer Institute and is also an EPA alum.
— “Substation fire puts Puerto Rico’s private grid operator to the test,” via POLITICO.
— “Japan’s Big Bet on Hydrogen Could Revolutionize the Energy Market,” via The Wall Street Journal.
— “European negotiators talk up hope of breakthrough at Iran nuclear meetings,” via The Associated Press.
— “Biden considers giving refiners relief from U.S. biofuel laws, sources say,” via Reuters.
— “Collins says new infrastructure offer won’t include gas tax hike,” via POLITICO.
— “Shell weighs blockbuster sale of Texas shale assets,” via Reuters.
— “13 Refineries Emit Dangerous Benzene Emissions That Exceed the EPA’s ‘Action Level,’ a Study Finds,” via Inside Climate News.
THAT’S ALL FOR ME!
