With help from Zack Colman, Alex Guillén and Kelsey Tamborrino
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— FERC Chair Richard Glick will face a far more politicized field in his bid to continue leading the commission despite President Joe Biden’s backing.
— Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is back on the Hill, where she will likely face more GOP grilling over federal offshore leasing.
— G-7 finance ministers are aiming to create a “Climate Club” to set the economic tracks necessary to meet the Paris agreement goals.
HAPPY MONDAY! I’m your host, Matthew Choi. Sohini Baliga of Stand.earth gets the trivia for knowing Indira Gandhi was born in Allahabad, now formally known as Prayagraj. For today: Who is the only reigning monarch who is fluent in Czech? 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: Why Interior’s offshore plan schedule is raising doubts.
GLICK 2.0: The spotlight on FERC Chair Richard Glick is getting brighter after the White House announced President Joe Biden intends to renominate him to the commission when his term ends next month. While Glick has won the praise of climate advocates and the clean energy industry for his focus on streamlining transmission permitting to allow more renewables onto the grid, GOP lawmakers and fossil fuel interests are increasingly hammering the agency for taking actions they say work against the domestic oil and gas industry.
Democratic Senate Energy Chair Joe Manchin and Republicans on the committee blasted Glick earlier this year for the commission’s policy statements that would have increased environmental justice and climate change considerations in natural gas project permitting — a move on which the commission backtracked. Manchin’s office declined to comment on Glick’s nomination when POLITICO’s Catherine Morehouse asked, but that isn’t stopping pro-fossil groups from using the chair’s past remarks to come out against it.
“If left to his own ideology and devices, Chairman Glick would still be stopping American energy projects today. Thankfully, Senator Joe Manchin had the courage to stand up to his own party and put the brakes on some of his reckless policies,” Daniel Turner, founder and executive director of pro-fossil Power The Future, said in a statement (Manchin later commended the commission for reverting its policy statements to draft form as a “course correction”).
Conservative advocacy group Common Sense Leadership Fund also launched an advertising campaign this month targeted at voters in early primary states New Hampshire and Nevada, reading: “What the FERC! Biden’s Democrats are intentionally raising your high energy prices.”
But Glick’s allies and those who have worked with him directly praise him for his experience and nuance. He was first appointed to the commission in 2017 as a Democrat by then-President Donald Trump and was also a senior policy adviser to Bill Richardson, who was then President Bill Clinton’s Energy secretary.
“Rich Glick is a dedicated public servant with an encyclopedic knowledge of the energy industry. While I can’t say I agree with every one of his initiatives, he is well-prepared, smart and open to hearing all sides. If he is indeed confirmed, which seems likely, I look forward to continuing to work with him,” said Scott Segal, a partner at Bracewell Policy Resolution Group, whose clients include natural gas interests.
Likewise, Gregory Wetstone, president and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy, called Glick “exceptionally effective” and pragmatic as chair. “We look forward to continuing to work with him on critical reforms, like FERC’s new rulemaking on transmission, that help move the country forward on our path to a clean energy future,” he said in a statement.
ICYMI, here’s Catherine’s original write up of Glick’s renomination.
MORE BUDGET BUSINESS: Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is back on the Hill this week for another hearing on her department’s fiscal year 2023 budget request Wednesday, this time in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Her last visit to the Senate quickly became a rebuke from members of the Energy Committee over the administration’s federal oil and gas leasing program, with Manchin railing against the delays and limited scope of the program’s roll out (Haaland also announced a new summer deadline for the next 5-year offshore leasing proposal).
ME predicts more of the same at this hearing. The Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Subcommittee has some of the most vocal Republican critics against the administration’s leasing rollout, including subcommittee ranking member Lisa Murkowski, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, EPW ranking member Shelley Moore Capito and Energy Committee member Cindy Hyde-Smith.
Over in the House, the Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security will take on FEMA’s budget Wednesday and the Defense Subcommittee will discuss the spending for DOD’s Defense Environmental Restoration Program on Thursday.
AN EPA NOM: The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has a confirmation hearing Wednesday for Joe Goffman to be assistant EPA administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation. Goffman already leads the office as principal deputy assistant administrator and formerly served on EPW Chair Tom Carper’s staff.
LEGISLATION IN THE SUBCOMMITTEES: The Senate Energy Water and Power Subcommittee meets Wednesday to go over several bills related to water conservation and management, including a bill introduced by Sen. Martin Heinrich in companion with legislation by Rep. Melanie Stansbury to protect water in the Rio Grande Basin as part of their “Aquabus” water security package. The subcommittee will also consider two amendments to last year’s bipartisan infrastructure package by ranking member John Barrasso and Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) to alter eligibility requirements for certain small water storage and groundwater storage projects and to give resources to certain Bureau of Reclamation projects.
The House Natural Resources Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee meets Tuesday to discuss Rep. Betty McCollum’s (D-Minn.) Boundary Waters Wilderness Protection and Pollution Prevention Act, H.R. 2794 (117), which would withdraw over 200,000 acres of federal land and waters in the Rainy River Watershed of Superior National Forest in Minnesota from sulfide-ore copper mining.
GAO URGES EPA TO BE MORE FLEXIBLE ON METHANE TECH: EPA needs to allow oil and gas companies to get approval more easily for alternative and newly emerging technologies to control methane emissions, the Government Accountability Office said in a Friday report. Under the current process, “alternate means of emission limitation” have been site-specific ways to approve pollution-capturing technologies that are equal to or better than what EPA rules require.
But with oil and gas sources so numerous, GAO found companies would be much more willing to put in the time and expense of getting that approval if those technologies were green-lighted for an entire basin rather than a single well. EPA told GAO that it is open to such broad approvals “if presented with sufficient information” and that it is working to incorporate flexibilities into its ongoing rulemaking.
GAO also encouraged the Bureau of Land Management to cull strategies from several states that already directly regulate methane from oil and gas operations. The matter is complicated by a 2020 court ruling saying BLM had overstepped its authority with an Obama-era rule limiting methane emissions from operations on federal lands. GAO recommended BLM revisit the issue and consider specific gas capture requirements, as several states already have.
LET’S GO (CLIMATE) CLUBBING: G-7 finance ministers and central bank governors took the first steps of creating the “Climate Club” that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz touted to raise ambition and reinforce economic shifts to meet Paris climate agreement goals, the ministers and governors said in a Friday communique. The effort came against the backdrop of rising energy prices spurred by Russia’s war in Ukraine that the officials said “underscores the need to accelerate the reduction of our overall reliance on fossil fuels and strengthen our transition to clean energy.”
The idea of a climate club that uses incentives to deepen ties between its members and penalize laggards is a favorite of economists, and relies on a mix of carbon pricing, climate regulations and trade alliances to lure nations into carbon-cutting action. To that effect, the ministers recognized the “potential of high integrity carbon markets and carbon pricing,” while reiterating prior warnings that “carbon leakage may increase” without more comprehensive policies to address industry fleeing to countries with laxer climate policies. The G-7 nations therefore committed to “cooperate on possible WTO-compatible mechanisms to mitigate this risk and support trade relations,” touching on a subject at the heart of U.S. and EU divisions on how to apply fees on the carbon contents of imported goods.
And the bank governors and ministers alluded to growing interest in steeling the financial system against climate shocks, a process underway in the EU but just getting started in the U.S. as the Securities and Exchange Commission weighs rules requiring companies to disclose their risks to climate change. The communique said the governors and ministers would “consider the impact on economic, financial and monetary decision-making, in line with our mandates” when it comes to climate change.
GAS EXPORTS ARE FINNISH’D: Finland and Russia’s energy divorce took a massive step forward Saturday when Moscow cut off natural gas exports across the border. The move was in retaliation to Finland’s application to join NATO last week as well as its refusal to pay for gas in rubles — a demand by Russian President Vladimir Putin as his currency suffered from global economic isolation. POLITICO’s Samuel Stolton has more.
DAVOS DAYS: Welcome to Switzerland. Today kicks off the annual Davos World Economic Forum, and energy analyst-cum-historian Daniel Yergin predicts energy security and climate to be top of mind, he said in an interview with The New York Times. In addition to inflation, supply chain difficulties, energy security challenges owing to the war in Ukraine and the energy transition amid oil and gas shortages, world and business leaders are also likely to begin discussion on the postwar reconstruction of Ukraine, Yergin said, “whenever that can begin.”
“It was a different world after the 1973 crisis than before, and it is going to be a different world after this crisis than before. I think this is the epochal moment,” he said.
— The White House is announcing three new detailees to the Climate Policy Office: EPA spokesperson Nick Conger will be a senior adviser, DOE chief of staff special adviser Robert Golden will be senior policy adviser for clean energy infrastructure and White House CEQ deputy director for climate resilience Krystal Laymon will be senior policy adviser for climate resilience and adaptation.
— Bethany Williams is leaving her post as director of media relations for the American Petroleum Institute to lead the energy practice at communications firm Adfero.
— Kim Corbin is joining consultancy Pioneer Public Affairs as a partner. Corbin served as senior adviser to Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.) on the House Rules Committee and was previously staff director of the U.S. Joint Economic Committee under Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.).
— “How an Energy Expert Triggered Vladimir Putin With One Word,” via Bloomberg.
— “U.S. economy is in a ‘period of transition,’ White House economic adviser says,” via POLITICO.
— ”Tremont City Barrel Fill site to begin cleanup,” via WDTN.
— “EPA proposes deadlines for 2023 renewable fuel volumes in deal with biofuels group,” via POLITICO.
THAT’S ALL FOR ME!
