BACK TO THE BUDGET: Welcome back to another thrilling week. We've got a couple of big hearings and markups coming up that dive into both the administration's budget request and Democrats' attempt to rein in runaway gasoline prices. Granholm treks back up to the Hill on Thursday to pitch increasing her department's budget by $3.3 billion to the Senate Energy Committee. She made a similar appearance at the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week, where a lot of the conversation was dominated by Republican criticisms of the administration's stance on oil and gas and its plans to boost clean energy (if you want a refresher on that hearing, POLITICO's Catherine Morehouse and Kelsey Tamborrino have you covered). Republicans on the Senate committee have sought to pillory the administration for rising fuel prices, and ME feels safe predicting more of the same this week. Granholm denied the administration was responsible for rising energy costs during the House hearing, pointing instead to Wall Street investors for blocking greater production. NOPE ON NOPEC? Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee will also revisit the perennial legislation known as the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels (NOPEC) Act. Consideration of the bill — which comes as OPEC members are set to gather virtually on Thursday to approve another 430,000 barrel-a-day incremental production increase — would allow the Justice Department to sue oil cartels for antitrust violations. Both Republicans and Democrats are eager to point their finger at OPEC and its allies for their role in high worldwide energy prices, and relations between Washington and OPEC's bigwigs are reaching new lows as they split on how to respond to Western blockades on Russian oil. But the oil industry isn't getting behind the bill. The American Petroleum Institute warns it would cause "serious, unintended consequences" and wouldn't meaningfully reduce prices, according to a letter POLITICO's Josh Siegel got his hands on. The bill "creates significant potential detrimental exposure to U.S. diplomatic, military and business interests while likely having limited impact on the market concerns driving the legislation," API CEO Mike Sommers said in the letter to Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin and top Republican Chuck Grassley. Sommers warns the legislation could lead to "reciprocal" action from OPEC countries against U.S. oil and gas companies. The committee scheduled a vote on the NOPEC Act for Thursday after postponing it last week. The bill, passed by the House Judiciary Committee last year, has been introduced in every Congress over the past 20 years, but never signed into law. WRDA WEDNESDAY: The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is voting on this year's iteration of the Water Resources Development Act on Wednesday, along with Benny Wagner's nomination to be TVA inspector general. After passing a spate of lead pipe removal and clean water infrastructure funding in last year's bipartisan infrastructure package, lawmakers centered this year's WRDA on waterway and environmental infrastructure projects and research. The draft bill currently enjoys bipartisan support and authorizes or modifies 36 USACE feasibility studies and 21 projects for construction. Read the bill text here. OTHER MEETINGS TO NOTE: Senate EPW is going on a field trip Friday for a hearing on community concerns about decommissioning nuclear power plants. It'll be in Plymouth, Mass., where the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station stopped commercial operation in 2019. The Senate Energy Committee also has a markup on Tuesday to vote on Maria Duaime Robinson's nomination to lead DOE's Office of Electricity and several public land bills. LIGHTHIZER BACKS BORDER ADJUSTMENT: Former President Donald Trump's top trade adviser Robert Lighthizer is advocating for the idea of penalizing imports of high carbon-polluting goods from top emitting countries like China. The concept pairs a protectionist trade agenda favored by Lighthizer with combating climate change, an issue that the Trump administration disdained. "When you let polluters sell in your market without a border adjustment you are losing U.S. jobs in the competing industries and essentially you are subsidizing the polluters. This makes no sense," Lighthizer told POLITICO's Josh Siegel. Lighthizer, the architect of Trump's trade war against China, said he's spoken about the idea with Republican senators toying with the idea (it's a point of potential bipartisanship, as Josh reported in February). Republicans including Sens. Cramer and Lindsey Graham have reached out to former Trump administration officials to rally support for the policy in order to boost credibility with conservatives who are skittish about being associated with any policy that would address climate change. But Lighthizer said he is opposed to pairing any tariff or fee on imported goods with a corresponding domestic carbon price. Many economists and trade experts say it would be hard to get the WTO to approve a carbon border fee for a country that wants to penalize imported goods based on carbon content without taxing its own products.
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