| | | | |  | | By Matthew Choi | Presented by Equinor | With help from Josh Siegel and Catherine Morehouse Programming announcement: Starting June 27, Morning Energy will be exclusively available to POLITICO Pro subscribers. Subscription benefits include access to the must-read daily Morning Energy newsletter and POLITICO Pro's exclusive suite of nonpartisan news, real-time intelligence, in-depth analysis, bill tracking and research tools. Please visit our website to continue receiving Morning Energy and to learn more about a POLITICO Pro subscription . Additionally, on June 27 POLITICO will launch Power Switch, a new energy- and climate-focused consumer newsletter. This will be a high-level newsletter focused on the larger conversation around the politics and policy of the energy transition.
| | | — The crippling explosion at the Freeport LNG export facility has observers keeping a close eye on the administration's ability to deliver natural gas to Europe amid the war in Ukraine. — The Supreme Court's ruling on EPA's pollution regulating authority could have far-reaching consequences. — The House is lining up to vote on biofuel legislation next week to help bring down gasoline prices. HAPPY FRIDAY! I'm your host, Matthew Choi. Congrats to Martin Edwards of Taft Advisors for knowing Grenada kept Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state after its communist revolution. For today's trivia: What is the longest line on the Hamburg U-Bahn? 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: How a Texas LNG facility explosion could cause problems for Europe.
| | | | | A message from Equinor: Can a wind turbine generate more than electricity? We believe it can. At Equinor, we're working to power 2,000,000 New York homes with homegrown, renewable energy while boosting the economy, generating jobs, and launching tomorrow's clean energy infrastructure. Equinor is a broad energy company, committed to become net-zero by 2050. We're advancing the Empire Wind and Beacon Wind offshore wind projects and quickly becoming a leader in this growing industry. | | | | | | EXPLOSIVE AFTERMATH: It's too soon to say how badly the explosion at the Freeport liquefied natural gas export facility will impact the Biden administration's energy plans for Europe. But with markets tight and prices high, "every lost cargo matters," Ben Cahill, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told POLITICO's Ben Lefebvre. The plant is expected to stay off line for at least three weeks. And though that isn't enough time to completely derail President Joe Biden's commitment of finding 15 billion cubic meters of LNG for Europe, it does make it less likely the administration will exceed its goals at it had hoped. And it makes refilling Europe's tanks with gas more difficult before the winter heating season. Europe's low gas storage played a major part in the continent's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Moscow had for months been holding back on its shipments to fill the tanks before the invasion, driving up energy prices and leaving the continent more reliant on foreign imports. The State Department's point person on European energy, Amos Hochstein, told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Thursday that "the summer is the most important period — we need to load up [European] storage that they will use in winter." "By Nov. 1, we have to get 85 percent storage in Europe. That's a tall task," he added. Read more from Ben. MAJOR QUESTIONS: The Supreme Court is slated to rule on EPA's authority to regulate power plants' greenhouse gas emissions this month, and the outcome could have significant impact on how the federal bureaucracy functions, POLITICO's Alex Guillén and Sarah Owermohle report. The case goes into a right-wing challenge on the ability of agencies to regulate on "major" actions impacting swaths of the country and economy without the express intent of Congress. A narrow reading of agency powers could hamstring EPA's efforts to revamp Obama-era pollution rules — one of the Biden administration's most direct moves to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. Legal experts widely expect the court to side with conservatives arguing the Obama-era rules went beyond their legal scope. But a ruling restricting agency authority could upend a host of other regulations, including environmental and climate-focused rules such as an EPA proposal to strengthen carbon dioxide limits for new vehicles and the Securities and Exchange Commission's proposed climate risk disclosure rule. Read more from Alex and Sarah here.
| | | | 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. | | | | | | | | ON THE HOUSE DOCKET: With skyrocketing inflation and a new record gasoline price set every day, the House will vote next week on a bill intended to bring down the cost of food and fuel through the Agriculture Department. The Lower Food and Fuel Costs Act, H.R. 7606 (117) , would authorize $200 million for fiscal years 2022 and 2023 for the Agriculture Secretary to build out the nation's biofuel infrastructure, and it would expand the EPA administrator's authority to waive biofuel blending limits. The Biden administration already waived E15 blending limits for the summer in a bid to help bring down gasoline prices, though its effects have been concentrated in Midwestern states with large agriculture footprints. MANCHIN'S DPA BLUES: Senate Energy Chair Joe Manchin would have preferred the Biden administration use the Defense Production Act to boost fossil fuels, he suggested Thursday, distancing himself from the president's move this week to use the Cold War-era law to spur domestic manufacturing of clean energy technologies. "We need Defense Production [Act] to make sure we have enough fuel so we can reduce our prices of the energy we need, for oil and gas and all the things we need," Manchin said when asked by POLITICO's Josh Siegel if Biden acted appropriately to invoke the DPA to accelerate domestic production of solar module components. Manchin has previously called on Biden to use the DPA, an emergency national defense law, to help domestic oil and gas and to complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a stalled project that would send natural gas through his home state of West Virginia to the East Coast. The administration, though, has not obliged. METHANE IN THE STATES: The House Climate Crisis Committee will hear from the governors of New Mexico and Wyoming on Tuesday about their states' efforts to cut down on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. The hearing will go into how the states use funding under last year's bipartisan infrastructure package for plugging abandoned wells. The House Science Committee had its own hearing on the oil and gas industry's methane emissions on Thursday, unveiling a study that found that emissions in the Permian Basin are likely substantially higher than those officially reported to EPA. Click here if you want to read The Washington Post's report on the study, and here if you want to watch the Post's TikTok on the study.
| | | AN ORGANIZATION OF PETROLEUM IMPORTING COUNTRIES? The Biden administration is huddling with its Western allies to form an oil buyers cartel to keep Russian oil on the market without too much money flowing to its war machine, The Wall Street Journal reports. G-7 countries are considering requiring European and British insurance companies to only insure Russian oil shipments below a set price cap to force down the country's prices, according to the Journal. The European Commission already reached a deal on a sanctions regime that would bar insurance of Russian oil shipments, and the G-7 plan would have to comport with that framework to avoid disrupting the sanctions deal European officials painstakingly negotiated. "I think what we want to do is keep Russian oil flowing into the market to hold down global prices and try to avoid a spike that causes a world-wide recession and drives up oil prices," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said. "But absolutely the objective is to limit the revenue going to Russia." Read more from the Journal here. BIDEN IN LA: President Joe Biden will visit the Port of Los Angeles to discuss the investments included in last year's bipartisan infrastructure package. The visit comes on the tail of his appearance at the Summit of the Americas in LA. He'll be joined by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Gov. Gavin Newsom and Reps. Alan Lowenthal and Nanette Barragán. DOE NEEDS A PLAN: The Energy Department needs a comprehensive plan for both responding to and recovering from grid failures, a Government Accountability Office report found . DOE and other state, local and federal agencies, along with private entities, partnered in past disasters that impacted the grid to quickly recover from failures, but the GAO report said "roles and responsibilities within DOE for transitioning from response to recovery are unclear, as are how lessons learned from previous disasters are used to prioritize recovery and technical assistance efforts." The report recommended the creation of a more comprehensive response and technical assistance plan with state, local and private partners, while incorporating lessons learned from past disasters — a recommendation the department agreed with. "In the face of increasingly severe weather events caused by climate change, the Department of Energy continues to take a comprehensive approach to enhance disaster response as well as grid recovery and resilience efforts. DOE has clearly defined roles and responsibilities across the agency to improve efforts that support the transition from response to recovery and we are developing tools and resources that bolster our ability to ensure communities across the nation have access to a resilient, clean, and secure grid," a department spokesperson said in a statement to ME. Read more from POLITICO's Zack Colman.
| | | | DON'T MISS DIGITAL FUTURE DAILY - OUR TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER, RE-IMAGINED: Technology is always evolving, and our new tech-obsessed newsletter is too! Digital Future Daily unlocks the most important stories determining the future of technology, from Washington to Silicon Valley and innovation power centers around the world. Readers get an in-depth look at how the next wave of tech will reshape civic and political life, including activism, fundraising, lobbying and legislating. Go inside the minds of the biggest tech players, policymakers and regulators to learn how their decisions affect our lives. Don't miss out, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | ELECTION WATCH: Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke won the Republican nomination for Montana's 1st congressional district Thursday night, the AP called. FIVE DOLLAR MILKSHAKE: The average price of a gallon of gas hit $4.97, according to AAA data — another record high following a relentless trail of records over the past several days. The average could breach $5 as soon as today, with price aggregator GasBuddy saying that already happened on Thursday. Vacation plans are still largely a go: Planes remain full, roads are packed and Americans are eager to celebrate the summer after two years of Covid. SOUTHWEST MARKET PROPOSAL PLEASES NO ONE: Comments trickled in Thursday on the Southwest Power Pool's plan to lower barriers for distributed clean energy resources such as energy efficiency and rooftop solar — and few were pleased with the proposal. Most utilities in the wide region — which stretches from Montana to the Texas panhandle — remain worried about the technical details involved with integrating more demand-side resources onto the power system. "SPP's targeted implementation date seems unrealistic given the magnitude of tasks necessary to achieve implementation," wrote the Omaha Public Power District in comments filed with the commission. But the clean energy industry and environmental groups protested that the rule does not go far enough in lowering market barriers to these resources — which they argue will improve reliability and save ratepayers money.
| | | — "Iran's Actions Could Be Fatal Blow to Reviving Nuclear Deal, Says IAEA Chief," via The Wall Street Journal. — "Cleaning Up Airline Travel Is Going to Be Really Expensive," via Bloomberg. — " HHS report warns of extreme heat risks in coming months," via The Hill. — "Most Americans expect inflation to get worse, Post-Schar School poll finds," via The Washington Post. — "Texas power use seen breaking records in heatwave through next week," via Reuters. THAT'S ALL FOR ME!
| | | | A message from Equinor: The energy transition is the defining challenge opportunity of our time. Our world needs energy to keep moving forward — but it must be affordable, reliable, and accessible. We all have a role to play. At Equinor, we're doing our part by helping accelerate the energy transition . We're growing our renewable energy portfolio and lowering emissions from production. We're already on the way to powering 2,000,000 New York homes with energy from the Empire Wind and Beacon Wind offshore wind projects. We're creating jobs, building tomorrow's infrastructure, and sparking new economic activity. But for us, that's only the beginning. By the time the global population reaches 9 billion in 2050, our goal is to have net-zero emissions. Discover more about Equinor at www.equinor.com/USA. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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