| | | | |  | | By Matthew Choi | Presented by the National Mining Association | With help from Ben Lefebvre, Jordan Wolman, Kelsey Tamborrino and Daniel Lippman. Editor's Note: Morning Energy is a free version of POLITICO Pro Energy's morning newsletter, which is delivered to our subscribers each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day's biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.
| | | — Crude prices notched up big this monthas the U.N. Security Council sparred over Russia's menacing approach toward Ukraine. — A renewed bipartisan support for sanctions on Russia is brewing,with Nord Stream 2 on the cutting block. — Democrats continue to be optimistic on BBB, though it could get buried under their numerous other pressing priorities this month. HAPPY YEAR OF THE TIGER ! I'm your host, Matthew Choi. Anne Clawson of the National Alliance of Forest Owners wins the trivia for knowing the two standard written forms of Norwegian are Bokmål and Nynorsk. For today's trivia: What is the largest island in the Indian Ocean? Send your tips and trivia answers to mchoi@politico.com. Find me on Twitter @matthewchoi2018. 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 future of offshore gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico. | | | | | A message from the National Mining Association: The U.S. minerals mining industry provides the raw materials that fuel our society. From deploying EVs and meeting climate goals, to launching infrastructure projects and creating jobs, minerals make modern life possible. Click here to find out how. | | | | | | CRUDE ADVANCE: While tensions surrounding Russia's aggressive posture toward Ukraine were boiling over at the United Nations on Monday, crude oil prices posted their biggest January rally in three decades. The spot West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract gained 18 percent for the month to set a new seven-year high at $88.15 a barrel. The price surge isn't solely due to Moscow's troop build-up on Ukraine's border, but the fireworks at the Security Council certainly aren't easing any fears. The Ukraine situation strikes "at the very heart of the U.N. Charter," the U.S. ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the meeting, drawing a retort from Russia's Vasily Nebenzia, who instead blamed the U.S. for "whipping up tensions and provoking escalation." Of course the strong dollar, tight supplies and robust demand are underpinning the rally that saw the oil price soar. But none of that matters for President Joe Biden as inflation surges, and experts see little chance that OPEC+ will deviate from its slow but steady production ramp up when it meets on Wednesday — even if it had the ability to unleash more supply. BROAD BACKING FOR COMPROMISE RUSSIA SANCTIONS: Republicans not among the bipartisan group of eight senators negotiating a Russia sanctions bill are lending support to the effort — provided it contains strong provisions to hobble the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. The project remains a major sticking point, although it isn't expected to stop a deal being reached on a sanctions package as soon as this week. "That will have bipartisan support most assuredly," Senate Environment ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told Pro's Josh Siegel of the emerging sanctions bill. Democrats last month defeated a GOP-led effort to impose sanctions on Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany after an aggressive lobbying effort by the Biden administration that argued it would have caused a split between the U.S. and its European allies. But Republicans say conditions have since changed. "The Biden administration definitely wants us to ratchet up some response," Capito said. The legislation builds upon Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez 's (D-N.J.) previously introduced "mother of all sanctions" legislation, which authorizes a slate of harsh financial penalties that would kick in only after any Russian invasion of Ukraine. But Republicans who support sanctioning Russia want at least some penalties imposed before any invasion — rather than after the fact — including on Nord Stream 2. "I do think Sen. Menendez's language yields a little too much discretion to the president with Nord Stream 2, especially those that need to go into effect immediately. You have to put in some sort of trigger, because I don't think Vladimir Putin believes us," said Sen. Kevin Cramer, a Republican from the oil-rich state of North Dakota. "I don't want a sanctions package that gravitates to the lowest common denominator to get 60 votes," he told Josh.
| | | | DON'T MISS CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO's new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE. | | | | | | | | WHAT'S IN A DEADLINE: Congress is back in the swing of things this week and Democrats have a full plate of looming deadlines. The House is still going through its iteration of the competition bill designed to counter Chinese influence; both chambers' appropriators are figuring out how to deal with an impending fiscal deadline; and of course, lawmakers need to figure out if they can resuscitate the Build Back Better deal. Though the reconciliation package has languished for over a month, House Democrats are renewing their calls to their Senate peers to keep the talks alive. Progressives and moderates alike teamed up Monday to push President Joe Biden to get a climate-focused BBB passed the finish line in a letter led by Rep. Mike Levin that also included Reps. Abigail Spanberger, Cindy Axne and Josh Gottheimer. "In the two months since the House passed the Build Back Better Act, mid-December tornadoes killed at least 78 people in Kentucky and late December wildfires destroyed 1,000 homes in Colorado. The time for you to work with the Senate to finalize and pass the strongest and most comprehensive version of the Build Back Better Act that can get 50 Senate votes is right now," the lawmakers wrote. Senate Energy Chair Joe Manchin reiterated Monday that the climate and energy portions are the most likely fodder for a caucus-wide agreement needed to get to Biden's desk. Speaking with reporters, Manchin said "we believe that that basically, yes, we can do something and hopefully we do something very balanced." Manchin also reiterated his viewpoint that tanked Democrats' original plans for coaxing utilities toward using clean energy sources, saying that while building out renewables was important, "we need reliability in energy, and that means building pipelines, but we're having a very difficult time." Progressives have proposed a March 1 deadline to get the final package through to coincide with the State of the Union, but the party has been burned by arbitrary deadlines in recent months. And March is an ambitious goal considering everything else on Democrats' plate . Rep. Katie Porter offered a sober assessment on the target during a League of Conservation Voters call Monday. She pressed the need to get a new funding bill done in order to give agencies higher spending to execute the bipartisan infrastructure package and "any date is obviously subject to what we can get done" on BBB. "But I do think, you know, that … it focuses the mind to set deadlines," Porter said. | | | INTERIOR DOLES OUT FOR ORPHANS: The Interior Department is freeing up $1.15 billion for orphaned well clean up as part of the $4.7 billion allocated for the effort under the bipartisan infrastructure package. The plan will make a base of $25 million eligible to each of the 26 states that applied for grants, with clean ups expected to kick off in March, Pro's Ben Lefebvre reports. The effort is designed to both protect nearby communities from harmful emissions and help temper the U.S.' contributions to climate change by reining in methane pollution. Colorado's senators, whose state contains over 600 abandoned wells, lauded the plan, with Sen. Michael Bennet calling it also a chance to "create good-paying jobs and economic opportunities, and restore wildlife habitat in Colorado." NO APPEAL: Environmental groups are pressuring Interior to forgo any appeal to the D.C. District Court ruling last week that invalidated the November Gulf of Mexico lease sale and caused alarm among players in the oil sector. Greenpeace USA, Oil Change USA, 350.org affiliates and others are urging the department to stand down in the same way it did when a judge tossed the department's decision to authorize the Willow oil project in Alaska. "Any proper [environmental] analysis will show that new leasing is incompatible with addressing the climate emergency," the groups state in their letter. "With this in mind...we also strongly urge the Department of the Interior to create a new five-year offshore lease program with no proposed offshore lease sales when the current program expires in June 2022." Read the full letter here. | | | | A message from the National Mining Association:   | | |
MERCURY RETROGRADE: EPA took initial steps toward restoring Obama-era rules on power plant mercury pollution Monday, in yet another move undoing regulatory rollbacks introduced under the Trump administration. The agency proposed a move that would reinstate the legal basis used for rules that were among the Obama administration's most successful air pollution regulations, Pro's Alex Guillén reports.
Monday's move still leaves open the question on whether EPA will seek to tighten emissions limits under the regulation relative to the Obama years. EPA's acting air chief, Joe Goffman, hinted last summer that the agency could go in that direction, but Monday's proposal simply asks for comment on the issue. GONE FISHING: The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, which counts fishing industry associations and companies among its members, filed a lawsuit Monday against the Interior Department and other agencies over its authorization of the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind project. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges the administration "shortcut the statutory and regulatory requirements that were enacted to protect our nation's environmental and natural resources, its industries, and its people" when it approved the construction and operations plan for the project off the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The suit claims the administration failed to comply with multiple statutes, including the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act. "The decisions on this project didn't balance ocean resource conservation and management, and must not set a precedent for the enormous 'pipeline of projects' the government plans to facilitate in the near term. So we had no alternative to filing suit," said Annie Hawkins, RODA's executive director, in a statement. RODA had previously given the government a 60-day notice of intent to sue in October, but RODA said it received no reply. Interior did not comment on the lawsuit on Monday. The Vineyard Wind project is facing several other lawsuits, including one filed last month by the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation on behalf of commercial fishermen in the same court. IN THE WHEELHOUSE: Former EPA officials who worked for administrator Andrew Wheeler are aiming to counter the criticism levied on their old boss from inside the agency as he faces a tough path to be confirmed Virginia's natural resources secretary. In a letter to state Senate Democrats, obtained by Josh, the officials said their aim is to contest "politically charged" criticisms from other ex-EPA employees — mostly career staffers — who said Wheeler "sidelined science," "ignored agency and outside experts," and "rolled back rules to protect the climate." "We urge the members of the Virginia Senate to assess his qualifications based on a review of the many measured improvements to American's air, water and soil that were a direct result of his leadership and not be distracted by politically charged, baseless rhetoric," read the new letter, signed by a who's who of Trump EPA administration political appointees, including former air office head Bill Wehrum, deputy administrator Doug Benevento, and enforcement chief Susan Bodine.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | RGGI REPEAL: A Virginia Senate committee will call up a bill today that would take the commonwealth out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative just a little more than a year after it joined the carbon pricing program. Senate Bill 532 would repeal the Clean Energy and Community Flood Preparedness Act that passed in 2020 under then-Gov. Ralph Northam. Gov. Glenn Youngkin supports the legislation. Macaulay Porter, a spokesperson for Youngkin, told Pro's Jordan Wolman the new governor intends to leave RGGI by executive action , though it's unclear if he has that authority since the state joined the pact through legislation. Youngkin is "also supportive of this legislation to make sure future governors cannot unilaterally put Virginia back into this failed and expensive program," Porter wrote in an email. Raphael Debraine, the political and communications director for state Sen. Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax), the chair of the chamber's natural resources committee, told Jordan that "action will definitely be taken" on SB 532 when it's brought up in that committee later today. Democrats hold a narrow majority in the Senate while Republicans control the House of Delegates 52-48. | | | — Mike Danylak is leaving the Senate Energy Committee's Republican comms operation to be a senior vice president at CGCN Group. — Anna Yelverton is now deputy legislative director for Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.). She most recently was energy and environment legislative assistant for Coons. — Nuclear technology company Curio announced Ed McGinnis has joined as its new CEO. McGinnis previously held numerous roles at the Energy Department, including acting assistant secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy. — Becca Ward is now deputy assistant secretary for Senate affairs at the Department of Energy. She most recently was legislative adviser in the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs at DOE. | | | — " WTO, OECD vie to host carbon pricing talks," via POLITICO. — " Can Germany Show Us How to Leave Coal Behind?" via The New Yorker. — " The Texas Oil Heir Who Took On Math's Impossible Dare," via The New York Times. — " Amazon, Target and other corporate giants pace record 'clean' energy buying and show little sign of stopping," via MarketWatch. — " EPA declares 'no confidence' in cleanup plan for Conowingo Dam," via Bay Journal — "Appeals court rules SRP liable for higher solar rooftop electric rates," via Arizona Capitol Times. THAT'S ALL FOR ME! | | | | A message from the National Mining Association: Over 3 billion tons of minerals are needed to deploy wind, solar and other forms of advanced energy at scale – but demand will soon outpace supply. Congress must be thoughtful when considering land withdrawals – new restrictions put our supply chains and future energy goals at risk. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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