With help from Ben Lefebvre, Annie Snider and Zack Colman
PROGRAMMING NOTE: Morning Energy will not be published on Monday, Jan. 20. We’ll be back on our normal schedule on Tuesday, Jan. 21.
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— Billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer have histories fighting climate change, but that is not translating into much support from environmentalists for their Democratic primary bids.
— Lev Parnas, the Rudy Giuliani associate caught in the middle of the president’s impeachment, appeared on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last night where he said former Energy Secretary Rick Perry asked Ukraine to open an investigation into Joe Biden.
— Ahead of the Trump administration’s expected rollback of clean water rules, EPA’s Science Advisory Board will convene a conference call to discuss flaws documented in a series of recent draft reports on that and other deregulatory policies.
FINALLY FRIDAY! I’m your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. 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.
Bracewell’s Frank Maisano is back with the win for knowing that the first state to pass the Equal Rights Amendment was Hawaii in 1972. For today: By what year did all 50 states make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a state government holiday? Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to ktamborrino@politico.com.
THE TALE OF TWO BILLIONAIRES: Tom Steyer and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg can both make the case that they’ve done more over the last decade to fight climate change than anyone else running for president. But both men are lagging in the polls, even among Democrats who list climate change as their top concern, Pro’s Zack Colman reports. Instead, liberal Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are getting the accolades from climate advocates, despite centering their campaigns around broader themes such as corruption and income disparity.
The gap between Bloomberg’s and Steyer’s records and their primary support is one indicator of how climate change has become intertwined with larger ideological debates animating the left wing of the Democratic party, Zack reports. It also underscores how having an ambitious climate change platform has become a prerequisite for legitimacy as a national Democratic candidate.
“The reason climate activists don’t talk about them as much is their existence in this primary really highlights wealth inequality,” said John Qua, a senior electoral organizer with 350Action. “While I’m personally and organizationally thankful of their contributions to the movement, their run for the president hasn’t generated the kind of grassroots, ground-up base that we’re looking for.”
Bloomberg hits the Hill: Bloomberg met with dozens of Democrats on Capitol Hill on Thursday, POLITICO’s Sarah Ferris and Laura Barron-Lopez report. Bloomberg used the closed-door meetings to frame himself as a centrist who can go the distance against President Donald Trump and invest heavily in swing states. “I came away thinking, you know, this guy could win,” said Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.), who attended back-to-back meetings with Bloomberg.
PERRY IN THE LOOP? Perry relayed a request for the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, Parnas told MSNBC Thursday night. Parnas said Giuliani talked to Perry before Perry’s visit to incoming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s inauguration in May 2019 and told the former Texas governor to press Zelensky on an investigation: “He said the name Biden needs to be spoken,” Parnas said. Perry “called after the inauguration telling [Giuliani] that he spoke to Zelensky and Zelensky is going to do it,” Parnas told Maddow. Republicans say Parnas is not credible, but his two nights of interviews have roiled the impeachment proceedings.
Not how Perry remembered it: Perry, who could not be immediately reached for comment on Parnas’ comments, has said he was out of the loop with Trump’s plan to pressure Zelensky and denied ever mentioning the Bidens in meetings with the Ukrainians. The former secretary stepped down at the end of last year just as his activities in Ukraine started coming to light.
COMING SOON? Trump is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation this weekend, a group that’s vocally advocated for the rollback of the Obama-era Waters of the U.S. rule. As POLITICO’s Annie Snider reported earlier this week, the event gives the president an opportunity to unveil his administration’s revised water rule that would deliver a win to farmers and is expected to remove environmental protections for roughly half the country’s wetlands and millions of miles of streams. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, whose agency has said it plans to finish the new water rule this month, will also attend the annual convention in Austin, Texas.
TELECON EXTRAVAGANZA: EPA’s Science Advisory Board kicks off its first of four teleconference calls this afternoon to review draft reports on Trump administration regulations that the board’s workgroups concluded had major flaws. The critical reviews — of Trump administration proposals to weaken rules on greenhouse gas emissions from cars, mercury emissions from power plants and which waterways are to received federal protections, as well as the proposed science “transparency” rule — were conducted at the board’s own initiative, a fact that is especially notable since the majority of the panel’s members were appointed by the Trump administration.
First up in this afternoon’s call is the review of the administration’s proposed rewrite of the Waters of the U.S. rule. In the draft report, the panel concluded that the proposed rule “is not consistent with established EPA recognized science” and “threatens to weaken protection of the nation’s waters.”
HOUSE REPUBLICANS HUDDLE ON CLIMATE OPTIONS: House Republicans held a conference-wide meeting Thursday on climate change, where they sought to lay out issues the party would push as Democrats plan to release their own bill proposal in the coming weeks, Pro’s Anthony Adragna reports. The gathering featured presentations from Climate Crisis Committee ranking member Garret Graves; E&C ranking member Greg Walden; and Rep. Bruce Westerman, who gave a presentation on tree management, according to several Republicans who attended.
“The input we received was very good — a lot of folks talking about how they fully agree that this is an area where we have huge opportunities,” Graves said. While the exact details of the legislative package remain under development, Graves said it would include components to boost energy research and development, energy efficiency, new tree planting and conservation. He called the 45Q tax credit, enacted in 2018 to speed deployment of carbon capture and sequestration technologies, a “really good model.”
BISHOP WILL BE GOV. RUNNING MATE: Utah Republican Thomas Wright announced Thursday he named outgoing House Natural Resources ranking member Rob Bishop as his running mate in the state’s gubernatorial race, The Salt Lake Tribune reports. “I’m honored to have the candidate that I was most afraid of running against as my lieutenant governor,” Wright said.
SMALL ISLANDS FACE BIGGEST CLIMATE CREDIT RISK: Asian, Middle Eastern, North African and small island countries face the greatest credit risks from sea-level rise, a reality that would make recovering from climate-fueled damage more costly, according to credit-rating agency Moody’s. Between 10 percent and 25 percent of the population or GDP in Vietnam, the Bahamas, Egypt, Suriname and some Persian Gulf states are vulnerable to rising seas, Moody’s said in a report. Asia has the most people exposed to higher seas, led by Bangladesh, China, Indonesia and India.
Moody’s looked at several studies to assess the effects of seas rising 1 to 3 meters by 2100. It explained risks associated with sea-level rise would pose potentially steeper borrowing costs to rebuild after natural disasters, especially if a nation endures repeated shocks. “The economic and social repercussions of lost income, damage to assets, loss of life, health issues and forced migration from the sudden events related to sea level rise are immediate,” the report said.
— The American Chemistry Council added Ross Eisenberg as vice president of federal affairs, beginning Feb. 3. Eisenberg most recently was vice president of energy and resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers. ACC also added Jill Brubaker as a director of federal affairs, joining from member company Dow, where she was director of federal legislative affairs and director of political affairs; and the group announced the promotion of Allison Starmann to general counsel and corporate secretary, effective Jan. 1.
— Rachel Jones will replace Eisenberg as NAM’s vice president of energy and resources policy. Jones currently serves as senior director of energy and resources policy.
— The Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health added former Secretary of State John Kerry; Mary T. Bassett, director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard; Howie Frumkin, a former dean of the University of Washington School of Public Health; and Executive Director of Climate Nexus Jeff Nesbit to its new advisory board. The board will be chaired by former EPA Administrator and former director of Harvard C-CHANGE Gina McCarthy.
— “Massive oil refinery leaks toxic chemical in the middle of Philadelphia,” via E&E News and NBC.
— “Bernie Sanders is a confirmed NUMTOT,” via Mashable.
— “For the economy, climate risks are no longer theoretical,” via The Wall Street Journal.
— “Louisiana tribes file complaint with United Nations over U.S. inaction on climate change,” via NOLA.com.
— “Mexico’s Supreme Court rules against hiking ethanol fuel content,” via Reuters.
— “Germany agrees [on] timeline, compensation for coal phase-out,” via Associated Press.
THAT’S ALL FOR ME!
