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With help from Gavin Bade and Anthony Adragna
— Rick Perry’s tenure at the Energy Department is coming to a close, and we take a look at how he did on some of his signature issues.
— In a new impeachment deposition released this week, a State Department official backed up Perry’s claims that he never brought up former Vice President Joe Biden or the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma.
— The top editors for six scientific journals collectively aired concerns they have over EPA’s latest scientific transparency rule.
WELCOME TO WEDNESDAY, and happy almost-Thanksgiving everyone! I’m your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. Check out the new 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.
Charlie Riedl of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas was the first to correctly identify 1924 as the year that the first ever Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade took place. For today: What’s the real name of the so-called of Poultry King of southwestern Rhode Island, who first sent one of his birds to President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873 and kicked off a tradition of sending turkeys to the White House for Thanksgiving? Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to ktamborrino@politico.com.
GRADES ARE IN: Perry is days away from graduating from the Trump administration. And though his departure has been under the cloud of the House’s impeachment probe, he generally received high marks for some of his initiatives from both Republicans and Democrats for his nearly three years of running the Energy Department.
Even though Perry advocated eliminating the agency in 2011, he became a convert and lavished praised DOE’s scientific prowess and reassured lawmakers that he would follow their spending instructions rather than push the White House’s budget cuts. At the same time, he had a spotty record at best in pursuing the “energy abundance” agenda that President Donald Trump appointed him to champion.
On that note, POLITICO’s Ben Lefebvre, Gavin Bade, Eric Wolff and Anthony Adragna reached out to numerous sources to ask how they would grade Perry’s time at the department. Here are some of the scores:
— Natural gas: A-minus: The energy industry gave Perry high marks for streamlining the DOE permit process and expediting approvals for U.S. companies to export liquefied natural gas. He relished that role of salesman during his several trips to Ukraine and other European countries, where he pitched the fuel as an alternative to Russian supplies. But Perry’s power to clear away permitting hurdles at DOE didn’t extend to FERC, which couldn’t approve several gas export projects for months because it lacked a quorum.
— Coal and nukes: D-minus: Despite President Donald Trump’s promises to save the coal industry, it continued its sharp decline during Perry’s tenure. While nuclear power hasn’t suffered as much, a handful of reactors have closed in recent years and many others are slated to retire. Perry’s proposal to have FERC mandate customer-financed support for struggling coal and nuclear power plants in the name of national security was judged a misfire that was unanimously rejected by FERC. “DOE required the entire industry to waste tens of millions of dollars responding to a proposal that was [dead on arrival],” Harvard Electricity Law Initiative Director Ari Peskoe said of the proposal.
— Ethics: Incomplete: It’s unclear how much long-term damage Perry’s reputation will suffer from his involvement in the Ukraine scandal at the center of the House’s impeachment probe. Perry has so far declined to provide any information to the House investigation, but he has denied any knowledge of the alleged scheme. “It’s hard not to grade him on a curve” compared with former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt or others who flamed out of Trump’s Cabinet, said Jessica Tillipman, an assistant dean and ethics professor at George Washington University Law School. “But when you grade him against secretaries in past administrations, there are causes for concern and issues that are troubling.”
BACKUP FOR PERRY: Philip Reeker, acting assistant secretary of State for Europe, told congressional impeachment investigators he never heard Perry bring up former Vice President Joe Biden or the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma during his interactions with Perry. “I do not recall anything specific to that. It was really focused on this Three Seas [initiative] and then moving forward with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky,” Reeker said in testimony released Tuesday. Perry has said multiple times, even as he’s rebuffed a congressional subpoena, that he never heard specific demands for investigations in Ukraine that would benefit Trump’s domestic political interests.
In addition, the committee released short transcripts from what were supposed to be the depositions of former Perry chief of staff Brian McCormack and White House energy aide Wells Griffith. Both defied congressional subpoenas for the testimony.
JOURNALS CONCERNED OVER EPA SCIENCE RULE: In a rare joint statement published Tuesday, the editors of Science, Nature, Cell, PNAS, PLOS and The Lancet raised alarm over the Trump administration’s latest efforts to limit EPA’s use of scientific research in its regulatory decision-making, Pro’s Annie Snider reports. The editors from six of the most well-respected scientific journals cited reports about a revamp of the rule, as well as a hearing on the topic, in their cause for alarm. They write they’ve become even “more concerned” that “the proposal’s push for ‘transparency’ would be used as a mechanism for suppressing the use of relevant scientific evidence in policymaking, including public health regulations.”
GLICK ETHICS PLEDGE TO LIFT FRIDAY: The Trump administration ethics pledge that has kept Commissioner Richard Glick from participating in multiple FERC proceedings will end on Friday, giving the agency a quorum to vote on a key issue for the PJM Interconnection. Glick said in September that he would sit out of the PJM case and others after erroneous guidance from FERC ethics officials led him to improperly participate in cases involving his former employer, utility Avangrid. But the pledge only applies for two years from his nomination on Nov. 29, 2017, meaning it will expire Friday.
Glick’s ability to participate will allow FERC to vote on its long-delayed and controversial rewrite of the PJM capacity market, which allocates power generation three years in the future for the 13-state mid-Atlantic region. The commission’s Republican majority is expected to overrule Glick, a Democrat, and approve a strict price floor in the market that will block renewable energy and nuclear plants from participating, boosting prices for fossil fuel generators. Though FERC is open on Nov. 29, it is unlikely to take action on that day — Black Friday — meaning an order could come next week.
CHATTERJEE EURO TRIPS: As FERC gears up to issue that controversial ruling, Chairman Neil Chatterjee will be out of town next week on a tour of four European nations and meeting with officials about their electricity markets. Chatterjee will be in Vienna on Dec. 3 and Warsaw on the next day. On the 5th, he will head to Prague and finish his trip in Budapest on Dec. 6, according to a FERC spokesperson. He’ll discuss best practices with top energy regulators on issues like cybersecurity, grid reliability, market monitoring, reducing congestion, decarbonization and LNG, the spokesperson added.
WHAT TO WATCH: Congressional appropriators have a few weeks to figure out the finer details of a dozen government funding bills, following a compromise on the top-secret overall totals for those measures. But appropriators still face a huge lift with government funding set to expire on Dec. 20, Pro’s Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes report.
Especially this year, the pair reports, the order in which the spending bills get signed into law is almost as important as how much money is inside for each agency. You’ll recall that the five-week shutdown that began last December stopped funding for only the parts of the federal government that weren’t covered under the first few spending bills Congress had already cleared.
For the White House and many GOP congressional leaders, that means the Defense and Homeland Security bills are priorities for swift action. For Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the measure that funds DOE and water projects is also a chief choice for early resolution.
NEW JERSEY SENATOR CALLS FOR 45Q PROBE: New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez called on the IRS’ watchdog to open an investigation into potentially fraudulent claims for the tax credit to capture carbon, known as 45Q. In a letter dated Nov. 19 to Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George, Menendez wrote: “Publicly available data suggests that the vast majority of 45Q tax credits claimed have come absent the required monitoring, reporting, and verification systems that ensure the safe disposal of captured carbon, in clear contravention of current law and guidance.”
Menendez points to guidance that says filers are required to ensure that the carbon is permanently and securely stored in order to be eligible for the credit. “Yet based on a review of publicly available information, it appears millions of dollars of tax credits have been claimed by companies that are not complying,” Menendez wrote. The New Jersey Democrat previously raised the concerns with the IRS in April, but he said in the new letter that he elevated the request to the IG because the IRS’s response “fails to provide justification for the discrepancies.”
GOING STRONG: Figures released Tuesday by the California Air Resources Board show strong demand for allowances under the state’s cap-and-trade program with Quebec during the first sale since the Trump administration challenged the program, Pro California’s Debra Kahn reports. The Justice Department alleged in an October lawsuit that the state’s emissions market with Quebec is illegal because it puts the state in the position of conducting foreign policy. But despite the suit, businesses and government agencies snapped up all 43.5 million allowances up for sale by California in last week’s auction, generating nearly $740 million in state revenue.
— “One city’s plan to combat climate change: Bulldoze homes, rebuild paradise,” via The Washington Post.
— “‘Russian roulette’? EPA weighs release of drilling wastes,” via E&E News.
— “Sludgy crude oil gets surprising price boost ahead of new ship-fuel rules,” via Bloomberg.
— “California Democrats seek EPA watchdog help amid Trump threats,” via Roll Call.
— “Talen Energy to pay $450k to settle air quality violations,” via Associated Press.
— “Relocated BLM staff face salary cuts,” via The Hill.
THAT’S ALL FOR ME!
