With help from Kelsey Tamborrino and Ben Lefebvre
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— Democrats are tossing around a slew of alternative climate policies to reach President Joe Biden’s emissions goals after their Plan A ran aground.
— The Biden administration opted not to fight in court for ConocoPhillips’ controversial Alaska oil project after initially backing it at moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s urging.
— The Biden administration dealt a major blow to a contentious copper and nickel mine in Minnesota, issuing a temporary ban on new mineral leasing around the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
HAPPY THURSDAY! I’m your host, Matthew Choi. Congrats to LCV’s Julie Alderman Boudreau for knowing Tom and Greg eat ortolan in “Succession.” For today’s trivia, Where did Amy Brookheimer go to college in “Veep”? Send your tips and trivia answers to [email protected]. Find me on Twitter @matthewchoi2018.
Congrats to Gloria Gonzalez, one of ME’s fearless editors, for being the 2021 recipient of the David Stolberg Meritorious Service Award from the Society of Environmental Journalists! The award recognizes an SEJ member for exceptional volunteer work, which Gloria demonstrated in her many years on the group’s audit committee.
COFFEE’S ON: Democrats embark on another day of scrambling today to try to find a package of climate policies that could help deliver President Joe Biden’s ambitious emissions goals – and win the votes of the party’s 50 disparate senators.
Let’s start with the optimism: Democrats across the board continue to say climate is a critical priority for them in the reconciliation bill — including Senate Energy Chair Joe Manchin. And despite Manchin’s high profile rejection of the Clean Electricity Performance Program and his dismissal of carbon taxes as “not on the board” this week, Democrats are maintaining that agreement on a solution can be achieved.
But a meeting between Sen. Tina Smith, the primary driver of the CEPP, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Wednesday to spitball ideas to reach the administration’s emissions goals in a politically feasible way yielded no tangible results. Ideas under discussion included putting a price on industrial carbon emissions, a broader carbon tax or some other mechanism to generate additional emissions reductions from the industrial sector, she said. Smith and the caucus agreed tax credits alone weren’t enough to reach their goals, but said the credits were an important part of the equation.
“Truly, we are right now in the mode of generating alternatives and options,” Smith told reporters after the meeting. “Everyone is focused on the emission reduction goals. … There’s more than one way to skin this cat.”
Smith also joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats outside the Capitol earlier Wednesday to emphasize the party’s drive to get substantive climate measures off the ground. “It would be a dereliction of duty to build the infrastructure of America without doing so in a green way that protects the planet,” Pelosi said.
Rep. Ro Khanna also hinted that block grants to encourage states to boost their clean energy resources could offer another path forward. “This is very much an ongoing negotiation,” Khanna said.
Even the CEPP and carbon taxes still have their supporters, who are keeping the hope alive some version of either policy could please everyone. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) who, like Manchin, has shot down a carbon tax in the past, said Wednesday that he was opposed to a version that wouldn’t alter rebates for fossil fuel-reliant jobs, but “I don’t know that [carbon pricing has] been ruled out.”
Read more from Ben Lefebvre, Kelsey Tamborrino and your host on the party’s drive forward.
ALASKA PROJECT GETS COLD SHOULDER: The Biden administration has decided to not to go to the mat for a contentious new oil development project in Alaska after all. After initially defending ConocoPhillips’ Willow project in court, the Justice Department opted this week not to appeal a federal court’s August decision that voided the project’s approval. That’s possibly the end of what would have been the last large oil project in the state, and a major win for environmentalists hoping to preserve the state’s wilderness.
So far there’s been no word from Alaska’s two Republican senators, both of whom had supported Willow’s development. The Biden DOJ’s initial defense of the project was widely seen as a political favor to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the moderate Alaska Republican who is considered a key swing vote in a closely divided Senate.
Whatever caused the change of heart at DOJ, green groups are happy with the new course: “With Willow’s approval now revoked, President Biden can chart a new course in America’s Arctic that prioritizes meaningful and robust tribal consultation, recognizes environmental justice concerns, and prioritizes climate-focused management of this important landscape for generations to come,” Kristen Miller of the Alaska Wilderness League, one of the groups that sued the Trump administration, said in a statement.
IN COMMITTEE: The House Energy and Commerce Committee will spotlight the opportunities and challenges facing the offshore wind industry at an Energy Subcommittee hearing today featuring witnesses from industry and labor groups. Subcommittee Chair Bobby Rush plans to emphasize the U.S.’ lagging status relative to other developed countries and the need to invest in related sectors to support domestic offshore wind, including shipbuilding, steel and ports, according to prepared remarks shared with ME.
Also in the House, the Foreign Affairs Committee’s international development and energy subcommittees will host key officials leading international development programs to discuss the U.S.’ strategy going into the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. The House Science Committee’s investigations subpanel also has a hearing today with Katy Huff, acting assistant secretary of Energy at the Office of Nuclear Energy, along with industry experts, to discuss spending at the office.
And over in the Senate, the Energy Committee has a legislative meeting today on a number of pending bills dealing with forest management and public lands.
Looking toward next week, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will vote on three EPA nominations, including Carlton Waterhouse to be assistant administrator of Land and Emergency Management, Amanda Howe to be assistant administrator for Mission Support and David Uhlmann to be assistant administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. Christopher Frey will also get his confirmation hearing to be EPA assistant administrator for Research and Development, as will Jennifer Clyburn Reed, whom Biden nominated to be Federal Co-Chair of the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission.
SAVE (AND PUBLISH) THE DATES: Senate Energy Ranking Member John Barrasso is pressing Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and her senior counselor, Elizabeth Klein, to release their official calendars. Haaland’s has not been updated since April 1, and Klein’s is not posted on Interior’s website. “Ensuring the American public is well-informed of the day-to-day activities of top Department of Interior (Department) officials is important to all citizens who utilize our public lands and whose livelihoods depend on them,” Barrasso wrote. DOI declined ME’s request for comment.
There haven’t been any accusations yet of political malfeasance, but official calendars have become something of a partisan football, especially during the previous administration, when the calendars of former Interior secretary (and current Montana Congressional candidate) Ryan Zinke served as data points for unfavorable Inspector General investigations. Zinke’s successor, David Bernhardt, also made efforts to keep his official calendars under wraps. Haaland and Klein’s calendars would presumably show who top Interior brass was talking to as the department conducted its reviews of its oil and gas leasing protocols that Barrasso and other Senate Republicans opposed.
GREENS, LABOR BACK WORKER BILL IN RECONCILIATION: A coalition of labor unions and environmental organizations is urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Finance Chair Ron Wyden to include specific funding for dislocated energy workers in the budget reconciliation package. The groups, which include the Sierra Club, the BlueGreen Alliance and United Steelworkers, back Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown‘s recently introduced American Energy Worker Opportunity Act (S. 2966 (117)), which would invest $32 billion over 10 years to assist workers laid off as the nation shifts to clean energy sources, including through a wage supplement, health care benefits, and education and training funds. “Prioritizing and targeting federal resources to workers and communities in places impacted by this shift must be a deliberate choice,” the groups wrote.
ABOUT THOSE GREEN JOBS: Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley is raising concern over the loss of green manufacturing jobs in his home, even as the Biden administration is promising a boom in clean energy employment. Newton, Iowa-based TPI Composites announced this week it will be closing its doors at the end of the year after GE bought a wind turbine company in Denmark and shifted its orders there. “Policies that allow wind to continue to grow and expand its share of electrical generation are helpful, but will not reap benefits in terms of jobs if the overall labor and business climate pushes manufacturing offshore,” Grassley argued in a letter to Biden.
GLICK WEIGHS IN: FERC Chair Rich Glick said he believes the Southeast would be better off forming an organized market rather than the automated energy exchange that the region proposed and the commission adopt by default last week after deadlocking on the vote. Glick wrote in a Wednesday opinion that “utilities and other stakeholders in this region should be working to establish an RTO/ISO in the Southeast for the benefit of consumers and to promote grid reliability.”
Fellow Democrat Commissioner Allison Clements also weighed in against the proposal to form an automated energy exchange platform between utilities, while Commissioner Mark Christie wrote in favor of it. Commissioner James Danly hadn’t filed his opinion by Wednesday night, Pro’s Catherine Morehouse reports.
SETTING BOUNDARIES: The Interior Department and USDA dealt a major blow to a contentious copper and nickel mine project slated for construction in Minnesota on Wednesday, issuing a temporary ban on new mineral leasing around the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness as the administration conducts an environmental study of mining in the area. The Obama administration had tried to block the project using a similar mechanism, but the Trump administration canceled the study four months before it was due to be completed, and reinstated the project’s mineral rights leases.
The Biden administration’s move was hailed by House Natural Resources Chair Raúl Grijalva and top Interior Department appropriator Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), both staunch opponents of the mining project. Marc Fink, a Duluth-based senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, pressed in a statement for Congress to “act quickly to make this protection permanent so it can’t be reversed by a future administration.”
LOOK WHAT WE’RE DOING: The White House launched a new website Wednesday to highlight the National Climate Task Force’s work, allowing the public to track the administration’s actions to combat climate change all in one place. With the odds shrinking rapidly that Congress passes major climate policies as part of its reconciliation bill in time for the U.N. climate summit next month, the administration has been aggressively touting executive action on the issue.
PUTIN IS PUT-OUT: Vladimir Putin, president of the world’s fourth largest carbon emitter, will not be attending COP 26. A Kremlin spokesperson said climate is still a top foreign policy priority for Russia, and he is likely to tune in virtually, according to the BBC. The country is currently in the throes of a major Covid crisis, which has kept Putin largely homebound for the past several months. He also won’t be attending the G-20 summit in Rome just before COP 26, The Washington Post reports.
— “Exxon Debates Abandoning Some of Its Biggest Oil and Gas Projects,” via The Wall Street Journal.
— “Britain Outlines Energy Plans Amid Dimming Prospects for Climate Summit,” via The New York Times.
— “Taiwan Export Orders Surge to Record Despite China Energy Woes,” via Bloomberg.
— “‘No commercial case for green hydrogen’ yet: Siemens Energy CEO,” via CNBC.
— “Inaction on climate change imperils millions of lives, doctors say,” via The Washington Post.
