With help from Annie Snider, Ben Lefebvre and Alex Guillén
Editor’s Note: This edition of Morning Energy is published weekdays at 10 a.m. POLITICO Pro Energy subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 6 a.m. Learn more about POLITICO Pro’s comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services at politicopro.com.
— Lawmakers on the Hill are looking to contain PFAS contamination with bills, including several that will get a vote today in a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee.
— The full Senate Appropriations Committee this morning will mark up the Interior-Environment spending bill for fiscal 2020.
— Fresh off his confirmation as Interior’s top lawyer, Daniel Jorjani will testify before a House panel today looking at oversight at the department.
WELCOME TO THURSDAY! I’m your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. Entergy’s Rob Hall gets the win for identifying that two secretaries of State have held the position more than once — Daniel Webster, from 1841–1843 and again from 1850–1852, and James Gillespie Blaine, in 1881 and 1889–1892. For today: What is the only state that shares its border with only one other state? Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to ktamborrino@politico.com.
PFAS-PALOOZA, PART MCCLXXXIV: The fight over which PFAS provisions make it into the final defense bill is reaching a feverpitch as negotiators aim to tie up a deal that can be on the Senate floor by the end of next month.
Proponents of a Superfund designation are pumping out reports that underscore the extent of the contamination from the toxic chemicals, with new ones released this week focusing on Alaska and California. Rep. Harley Rouda, the chairman of the Oversight Environment Subcommittee; Rep. Dan Kildee, the co-chair of the PFAS Task Force; and other House Democrats will hold another press conference today to make their case for the controversial provision’s inclusion.
Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee will get another chance to underscore their position when the subcommittee votes this morning on 15 bills, including a number related to PFAS. Some of those bills, including H.R. 535 (116) to require the Superfund designation, are already included in the House’s defense measure.
Meanwhile, in the Senate the companion CERCLA bill (S. 638 (116)) now has every Democrat signed on as a cosponsor, as well as six Republicans. Lawmakers in the upper chamber also voted Wednesday on a non-binding motion to instruct conferees to stick with the Senate’s more aggressive timeline to phase out military firefighting foam containing PFAS.
We’ve got this: The Trump EPA is trying to signal that it can handle PFAS just fine on its own, thank you very much. The agency announced with an unusual amount of fanfare Wednesday that it had sent two PFAS rules to the White House for review — one to collect input about what kinds of public disclosures companies should have to make about their PFAS emissions, and another to restrict imports of products containing PFOA and PFOS. Both regulations are lower-tier issues addressed in the Senate’s PFAS package.
Hear it here: Administrator Andrew Wheeler is keynoting K&L Gates’ PFAS symposium this morning. His speech begins at 9 a.m.
DOI IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Hearings involving Interior will be playing out on both sides of the Capitol this morning. The full Senate Appropriations Committee starts things off at 9:30 a.m. with a scheduled markup of the bill containing the department and EPA’s proposed FY 2020 budget. Both the Senate and House have included language in their appropriations bills that tell DOI to stop its reorganization pending more information. Interior — which plans to shrink and scatter the D.C.-based team in charge of coordinating NEPA reviews — has so far said it’s full-steam ahead on the moves.
The afternoon shift: House Natural Resources plans a full committee hearing at 2 p.m. focusing on oversight issues at Interior. The administration will send Daniel Jorjani — who is one of the subjects of an Interior IG review whether the administration is futing with FOIA standards — as the sole witness, a committee spokesman tells ME.
Talking to Trump: Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby said he plans to meet with President Donald Trump today to discuss “where we are in appropriations, how we can move forward, what are the possibilities,” Pro’s Caitlin Emma reports. Shelby said Democrats’ push for impeachment could sideline the appropriations process.
GOVERNOR BISHOP? House Natural Resources ranking member Rob Bishop told reporters Wednesday he’s warming up to the idea of running for governor of Utah and will make a final decision sometime in October, Pro’s Anthony Adragna reports. “I really kind of think I know the model that I would try to be [as governor] if I were to do it. … I’m closer but haven’t made up my mind, totally,” Bishop said.
GETTING DOWN TO TAXES: New independent analysis from the Rhodium Group today looked at several energy tax credits that cover zero-emissions electricity, electric vehicles, biofuels and carbon capture and storage. The report found that extending tax credits through 2025 for zero-emitting generation could reduce up to 125 million tons of CO2 in 2025 compared to current policy, filling up to 25 percent of the gap between U.S. emissions under current policy and Paris agreement commitments.
— Extenders negotiations are continuing on Capitol Hill and should not be derailed by the impeachment inquiry, Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley told reporters Wednesday. But he acknowledged the process has not exactly been speedy, Pro Tax’s Aaron Lorenzo reports. “Aren’t they kind of already pushed to the back?” Grassley told reporters. “I wish I didn’t have to say that because normally they would have been done last December.”
WATER ANNOUNCEMENT ON TAP: EPA is holding a press briefing this morning on a “water announcement,” though details were scarce. Water industry sources say they don’t think either of the big water regulations sitting at OMB — a long-awaited update to the Lead and Copper rule and Trump administration revisions to an Obama-era rule limiting discharges from coal-fired power plans — are ready to go. But it’s worth noting, today marks one week since Trump promised EPA would issue environmental violations within a week to San Francisco related to its homeless population polluting the ocean — a claim he made without evidence and that was dismissed as ridiculous by city and state officials.
STATE SANCTIONS CHINESE COMPANIES: The State Department has sanctioned six Chinese companies and five individuals that it says helped transport Iranian oil in defiance of U.S. sanctions. “This is one of the largest sanctions actions the United States has taken against entities and individuals identified as transporting Iranian oil since our sanctions were re-imposed in November 2018,” State said in a press release. The sanctions could also show the U.S. becoming willing to use Iranian oil sanctions as another wedge in its trade scuffle with China even as Trump says the two countries are nearing a possible deal.
BSEE IN THE COURT: Democracy Forward and Healthy Gulf are suing the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement over its use of departures and alternative compliances to waive parts of the Obama-era Well Control Rule. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for D.C., alleges that the use of waivers in any systematic fashion would violate the Administrative Procedures Act and National Environmental Policy Act.
Count ’em: The suit stems from POLITICO’s report on BSEE handing out around 1,600 waivers since the rule went into effect in mid-2016. Most of the waivers targeted parts of rules setting standards for testing the blowout preventer, the part of the Deepwater Horizon rig that failed and caused a massive explosion that killed 11 workers and poured oil into the Gulf of Mexico. BSEE has said that companies can only get the waivers if they follow standards superior to those in the rule, but has not publicized how it judges those standards or even who is requesting or receiving them. The lawsuit argues that amounts to “sub silentio” rule-making: “These waivers were illegally issued without public notice or an opportunity for public comment,” Healthy Gulf Executive Director Cynthia Sarthou said in a press release.
STATES SEEK DELAY OF ACE LAWSUIT: New York and the other states challenging EPA’s Affordable Clean Energy rule on Wednesday asked that the case be put on hold for a while, echoing a similar request made last week by environmental groups. EPA and its legal foes are fighting over how quickly the case will be decided; EPA wants something quick that could lead to a ruling during the president’s first term, while the challengers want to let the case play out slowly for the inverse reason. The states based their request primarily on the pending petitions for administrative reconsideration, which they want EPA to answer before the lawsuit proceeds. Among the issues raised in the petitions: EPA’s delay in finalizing changes to the New Source Review permitting process.
For reference, the Obama administration didn’t respond to reconsideration petitions over the Clean Power Plan until Jan. 11, 2017, more than 14 months after publishing the rule. Of course in that case, the CPP had been judicially stayed, while no one has sought to stay the ACE rule this time around.
GROUPS PRESS ICAO FOR MORE CLIMATE ACTION: A coalition of environmental and clean transportation groups will urge the International Civil Aviation Organization, the U.N.’s civil aviation body, to take stronger action on greenhouse gas pollution from aircraft around the globe. A policy proposal to be presented at ICAO’s triennial meeting today in Montreal, the NGOs urge the body to set fleetwide fuel efficiency improvements of 2.5 percent annually through 2050, boost cleaner biofuel usage and promote policies that curb the use of air travel.
— “The bad news: PG&E power shut-offs will probably get worse, not better,” via San Francisco Chronicle.
— “Utilities’ big promises on CO2 questioned by analysts,” via E&E News.
— “After skepticism, U.S. Chamber of Commerce forms climate change task force,” via Reuters.
— “Revealed: Trump’s Wildlife Service pick has ties to anti-animal protection groups,” via The Guardian.
— “Another renewable fuel plant closes as Iowa leaders wait for White House biofuels fix,” via Des Moines Register.
THAT’S ALL FOR ME!
