With help from Anthony Adragna and Eric Wolff
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— Green groups are laser-focused on the Treasury secretary position under the Biden administration in hopes of securing climate change victories in the financial arena.
— A solar trade group is out with its suite of proposals for the first 100 days of the Biden administration that call for boosting solar through appointments at FERC and Interior.
— A Delaware Democrat predicts new carbon fee legislation he’s working on would be supported by “three, four or five Republican senators” next year.
FINALLY FRIDAY! I’m your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. Eversheds Sutherland’s Susan Lafferty gets the win for knowing Miami is known as the first major U.S. city founded by a woman, Julia Tuttle. For today: Without looking, how many presidents on Mount Rushmore have facial hair? Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to [email protected].
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: The Audubon Society’s summer of reckoning
TREASURY HUNT: Environmental groups see the Treasury secretary position as a means to secure climate change victories from the Biden administration, ranging from new requirements for lending to fossil fuel companies to implementing stress tests to ensure financial institutions can endure climate-related shocks, Pro’s Zack Colman reports this morning.
“Climate groups have never weighed in on Treasury and the Fed and these other agencies,” said Moira Birss, climate and finance director with environmental group Amazon Watch. “I suspect and hope that would draw the attention of the transition team. … We have a little bit of clout and movement power.”
They have their work cut out for them: Climate risks to markets and the broader financial system have become more prominent in the past year, but the U.S. largely lags behind regulators and banks in the EU and Asia. Environmental groups worry global economic recovery efforts in the wake of the pandemic have disproportionately prioritized fossil fuels, and the Treasury Department is somewhat limited in how far it can carry out climate wishes.
On the list for Treasury nominee: Many greens have rallied around Sarah Bloom Raskin, who served as deputy Treasury secretary under former President Barack Obama and also was on the Fed Board of Governors. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is also a favorite of groups like the Sunrise Movement. And some activists have pushed back on Lael Brainard, a member of the Board of Governors who has outlined the potential pratfalls of ignoring climate risks but has been viewed as carrying out Fed policies that they oppose, such as overseeing a bond-buying program that benefits companies, including oil and gas producers that were ailing before the pandemic.
On the Hill: Activists will have to convince a clutch of Senate Democrats who don’t normally view Treasury through a climate lens that they should back a nominee who prioritizes the issue. Sunrise, for example, plans to initiate a public pressure campaign with direct engagements and digital activism.
“We will expect results. I think just as the now-president-elect was wise to welcome that energy into his campaign after the primary, shunning them is only going to come at their own detriment,” Evan Weber, Sunrise Movement’s political director, said of young voters. “No matter what happens with Congress, we have to use every tool at our disposal. … The Treasury could have a lot of power.”
BIDEN KEEPS UP CLIMATE TALK: President-elect Joe Biden spoke Thursday morning with Pope Francis and expressed his “desire to work together on the basis of a shared belief in the dignity and equality of all humankind,” including addressing the climate crisis, according to a readout of the call. Biden also discussed climate change in calls with the leaders of Australia, Japan and South Korea on Wednesday.
— Biden spoke with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday. The trio “discussed the importance of finding bipartisan solutions to create millions of good-paying union jobs, including through investments in infrastructure, manufacturing, research and development, and clean energy,” according to a readout from the Biden transition.
ON SOLAR’S WISHLIST: The Solar Energy Industries Association released a proposal on Thursday for the next administration and new Congress urging them to add renewable-friendly personnel at FERC and the Interior Department to boost solar deployment, Pro’s Eric Wolff reports. The group would like to see an Interior secretary and deputy secretary ease the permitting for solar installations on public lands, and it would like the Army Corps of Engineers to implement a nationwide permit to make development easier.
At FERC, the solar trade group called for commissioners who would be friendly to state policies that subsidize renewables, and who would make changes to the regulations enacting the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act, which FERC only recently revised. The group also wants FERC to reexamine Order 1000, which attempted to stimulate development of transmission lines through competition. A lack of transmission lines linking wind and solar resources in the Midwest to population centers along the coasts is seen as a major bottleneck to a carbon-free electric grid.
TRANSPORTATION TALK: Biden transportation adviser John Porcari told state DOT leaders Thursday to start preparing for a stimulus bill that could include infrastructure projects both large and small, Pro’s Tanya Snyder reports. Biden’s DOT will look for “not just shovel-ready projects, but shovel-worthy — the ones that are actually worth doing, even if they’re not the ones that are the easiest to get off the ground,” Porcari said.
Porcari also teased some program elements that are “highly likely” to be a focus of Biden’s DOT, including project review streamlining and climate change resiliency. The approach to rights-of-way will change “from an ownership model of right-of-way to a stewardship model,” Porcari said. That means it should be applied to “the highest and best use for the right-of-way, not just the transportation use.” He said rural broadband or clean energy transmission could take precedence in some states as the most important use.
ATTRACTIONS YET TO COME: Sen. Chris Coons told an event hosted by Yale University he’s in the “finishing stages” of negotiating carbon fee legislation he predicted would be supported by “three, four or five Republican senators” next year. “I think we’re moving toward a place where a carbon fee is supported by industry, by advocates and by Republicans,” Coons said. “That’s the most likely big lever to move ahead.”
Coons acknowledged the urgency of aggressively tackling the problem, though he was wary of pushing the limits of executive action in light of a conservative-led Supreme Court. “If by urgently doing something now you provoke a successful counter-response that eliminates everything you did with executive action and successfully elects a conservative majority that is opposed to climate action, you frankly have done net harm,” Coons said. “It is maddening, and I am choking on the level of frustration I have in the Senate at how long it is taking for us to make real progress on this issue.”
The Delaware Democrat said the lone obstacle to advancing bipartisan energy legislation, S. 2657 (116), is Sen. Rand Paul, but predicted the bill would move next Congress if it didn’t this year. “The only thing holding it up at this point is one recalcitrant and difficult senator from Kentucky,” he said. “If it doesn’t get done in the lame duck of this Congress, I think almost exactly that package will get picked up reintroduced and moved early in the next. It is strongly bipartisan and it has taken years to put it together.”
Also: Coons said he and Sen. Mike Braun, his co-founder of the Senate Climate Solutions Caucus, intend to lead a “large, bipartisan delegation” to the next international climate summit in Glasgow next year that would deliver a commitment that “recognizes climate as an emergency, as an existential crisis.”
BIPARTISAN PUSH ON SOLAR JOBS: A bipartisan quartet of House lawmakers — Reps. Mike Levin, David Schweikert, Paul Tonko and Paul Cook — introduced legislation Thursday that would establish a temporary refundable investment tax credit for solar projects that break ground by the end of 2021. It would also extend the phase down of the ITC by an additional year in light of difficulties in breaking ground on new projects during the pandemic. Read the legislation.
NEW FERC HEAD CANCELS EV CONFERENCE: Newly installed FERC Chair James Danly has canceled a planned December conference on electric vehicles and the power grid. The conference had been the brainchild for former Chair Neil Chatterjee, who was demoted last week. The announcement offers no reason for the cancellation.
INTERIOR SETS MARCH DATE FOR VINEYARD WIND PERMIT: The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s website for Vineyard Wind now says it will complete a construction permit by March 18, 2021. The 800-MW project has been in limbo for months after BOEM said it needed to write a supplemental environmental impact statement.
CONSUMERS CUT OUT OF FLORIDA SOLAR DEAL: The future of a $1.1 billion solar program could hinge on an agreement between Duke Energy Florida, Walmart and two solar advocacy groups that shut out the residential utility customers that state regulators are supposed to protect, Pro’s Bruce Ritchie reports.
Florida’s Public Service Commission will begin a three-day hearing Nov. 17 that will focus on whether the settlement, which sets the contours of Duke’s plan with no input from the public, should be approved instead of delving into the project’s benefits or costs to consumers. While settlement agreements between utilities and their stakeholders aren’t new, the deals have raised concerns that certain customers, such as powerful industries, stand to gain when consumer advocates are cut out of negotiations. And utilities increasingly are using settlements to avoid scrutiny of projects and rate hike requests, critics say.
“It’s another example of the way the settlement process is being gamed,” said Ben Wilcox, research director of the nonpartisan government watchdog group Integrity Florida.
LINE 3 SCORES KEY PERMITS: Minnesota’s Pollution Control Agency and its Department of Natural Resources approved key permits Thursday for the Line 3 oil pipeline, paving the way for construction to begin soon on the controversial project, The Star Tribune reports. The Army Corps of Engineers still needs to approve its environmental permit, but a union official told the Star Tribune he expects Enbridge, the operator, will begin construction next month. The stalled pipeline would transport heavy Canadian oil to Enbridge’s terminal in Superior, Wis., crossing 212 streams and affecting more than 700 acres of wetlands in Minnesota.
Greens decried the move. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz “has apparently decided that if Washington won’t lead on climate, Minnesota won’t either,” said Andy Pearson of the climate advocacy group MN350 in a statement. “Make no mistake. This decision is a sharp escalation against water protectors and climate science.”
GROUPS PUSH FOR TCI BOOST: Two-hundred health, business, transportation and environmental groups backed the proposed regional Transportation and Climate Initiative program in a letter to governors and mayors across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic on Thursday.
The groups said they support a TCI program “that includes strong safeguards and guarantees for overburdened and underserved communities,” but noted that a TCI cap-and-invest program cannot be the only response. They call on the jurisdictions to move forward a program that recognizes the climate crisis fueled by the extraction and use of fossil fuels and that the transportation system as it stands is “deeply inequitable.” They also call for a carbon pollution cap that requires, at a minimum, a 25 percent reduction in transportation carbon pollution over the next decade.
— C.J. Osman is now vice president of government affairs at the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. He previously was vice president of operations, safety and integrity at INGAA.
— “Paris becomes passé as climate deals become chic,” via POLITICO Pro.
— “Contender to lead Biden EPA says agency should focus on environmental justice,” via Reuters.
— “Climate litigants see cases buoyed by Biden pledge of support,” via Bloomberg Law.
— “Senior Justice Dept. official stalled probe against former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, sources say,” via The Washington Post.
— “Documents reveal Trump is building his own ‘deep state’ by leaving political appointees behind in government for the Biden administration,” via Business Insider.
THAT’S ALL FOR ME!
