| | | | |  | | By Matthew Choi | With help from Catherine Morehouse, Alex Guillén and Josh Siegel. 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 White House Climate Policy Office faces criticisms from fellow Democrats that it has gotten in the way of agency rulemakings. — Republicans appear less certain about a bipartisan climate and energy deal, suggesting Sen. Joe Manchin is pivoting toward reconciliation. — Democrats' read on House Republicans' climate and energy plan is stark: There is no climate plan. HAPPY FRIDAY! I'm your host, Matthew Choi. GPA Midstream Association's Matthew Hite gets the trivia for knowing "caffè macchiato" literally means "stained coffee." For today: Who was the governor-general of Australia during the country's 1975 constitutional crisis? 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: Breaking down the GOP's energy plan.
| | | | CLIMATE POLICY OFFICE GETS HEAT: The White House Climate Policy Office is facing frustration over how it's pushing President Joe Biden's climate agenda — and its coming from its own camp, POLITICO's Zack Colman reports. Several Democrats both in and out of the administration laid out their discontent with the office, led by National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy, over its involvement in other agencies' work, saying it slowed down several high-profile agenda items. The Democrats said the office has gotten in the way of agency rulemakings. A Democratic Hill staffer told Zack the office edited and chose the day after Thanksgiving to release last year's long-awaited Interior Department report on the federal oil and gas leasing program. Another administration official told Zack the office delayed EPA's latest biofuel blending requirements last summer in order to keep key lawmakers on board with its Build Back Better agenda. And a person involved in the Council on Environmental Quality's Justice40 initiative said McCarthy's office constantly revised CEQ's screening tool for disadvantaged communities, slowing its roll out. "While we wait, the White House expects Black and brown communities to be grateful for table scraps," an official said. Leaders in the departments of Labor, Transportation and Health and Human Services, and the White House denied that the Climate Policy Office has gotten in the way, emphasizing it was a key player in some of the administration's highest profile climate items. Several of McCarthy's defenders outside of the administration also rebuffed the idea that her office was slowing others down, stressing that its staff was often on the phone prodding its counterparts throughout the federal government to do more. "President Biden directed us to ensure the entire government does more than ever before to tackle the climate crisis," McCarthy said in a statement. "If we are pushing hard, that means we're doing exactly what the president directed — leaving no stone unturned." Read more from Zack here. REPUBLICANS READY TO DITCH THE MANCHIN TRAIN: Senate Republicans have lost patience with Energy Chair Joe Manchin 's (D-W.Va.) push for a bipartisan energy and climate package. While they expressed openness to the talks at the beginning, there's a growing sense that Manchin is shifting his attention toward a Democrat-led reconciliation bill that would be a nonstarter for Republicans. Key GOP members of Manchin's energy group told POLITICO's Josh Siegel that they're fixing to ditch the effort unless there's a major change of tune. "I believe Joe's heart is still in bipartisan solutions, but his commitment right now is in reconciliation," Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said. Both efforts face a tight timeline, with Democrats missing their self-imposed Memorial Day deadline to have a general framework for a clean energy and health care reconciliation package that would win Manchin's approval. With little support on the Republican side to get a clean energy package through, a bipartisan deal with 10 Republicans always seemed to be a longshot, Josh reports. Manchin hasn't indicated so far what the next steps will look like for the bipartisan group. "Sen. Manchin continues to work with his bipartisan colleagues to find solutions that address our nation's climate and energy security needs," a Manchin spokesperson told Josh. Read more from Josh 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. | | | | | | | | ABOUT THAT GOP PLAN: Democrats are unsurprisingly not sold on the climate and energy plan Republicans floated Thursday, with green groups guffawing at the use of the word "climate" to describe it. As Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) outlined to POLITICO's Josh Siegel earlier this week, the plan would focus on domestic production of all kinds of energy technology, including fossil fuels, renewables, nuclear and carbon capture, with an eye toward countering heavy investments in other countries such as China. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), chair of the House Climate Crisis Committee, dismissed the package for omitting greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets and for not offering any policy steps to expand cheaper renewables like those in Democrats passed in the House's Build Back Better bill — which she blasted Republicans for voting against. "The deadly climate crisis is already harming local economies, bankrupting farmers and small businesses, and pushing families out of their homes," Castor wrote in a statement. "And yet Republicans seem to have no intention of treating it as a crisis if they take back power in Congress – and that will prove very costly indeed." Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.), one of the most vocal members in the House pushing for an aggressive transition to clean energy, likewise said in a statement that the lawmakers were merely "publishing messaging memos as you block climate legislation." And Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) dismissed the plan as "window dressing." "It is a set of talking points and a messaging agenda. It's also a fossil fuel agenda hiding beyond words like, 'all of the above'," the Californian told Josh. The proposal outlines major guiding principles for Republicans on energy should they take the House next year, such as outcompeting China and Russia and expanding U.S. production, and Republicans are aiming to put the tenets into legislation. SPR REFILL: House Republicans want to know how Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm plans to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve after the Biden administration finishes the largest ever release from the crude stockpile. The release of a million barrels per day will run through the summer, in coordination with other major consumers, including China. But now Beijing is refilling its crude stockpile and Republicans want to make sure the U.S. isn't being left behind. "The Biden administration is depleting the nation's petroleum reserves, while allowing OPEC, Russia, and China to gain geopolitical leverage over the United States," wrote House Energy and Commerce ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Energy subcommittee ranking member Fred Upton (R-Mich.) in a letter to Granholm. Russia is eyeing China as an alternative market for its oil exports following sanctions by both the U.S. and the European Union, and the House Republicans fear it could lead to China having the world's largest stockpile of oil. The Republicans want Granholm to detail the impact of the current release on domestic gasoline prices, the administration's plans to refill the SPR and the conditions of SPR sites. Read the letter here. DOE announced last month a buyback plan to refill a third of the 180 million barrels released to take place this fall. More buyback plans will be announced to replace the rest of the oil put on the market.
| | | JRB AND MBS: Biden is heading to Saudi Arabia later this month, The New York Times reports, a shift from the previous policy that was aimed at isolating the kingdom over its human rights record — specifically the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The rapprochement with Riyadh comes as OPEC+ announced a higher-than-expected increase in its export quota Thursday for July and August citing the return of Chinese demand after the country lifted Covid restrictions on Shanghai and an increase in global refining capacity. But it could also be a signal of improving relations between the Saudis and the Biden administration, which has been urging OPEC+ for months to increase output more quickly to offset high fuel prices. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted mild praise for the new output agreement Thursday, writing that White House welcomed "the important decision from OPEC+," but reaction on the Hill wasn't as rosy. Manchin called Thursday's output decision a "positive step" but said in a statement "the United States should never have to depend on other nations to provide the energy we can produce ourselves." Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee who have been critical of Biden's energy moves said the White House's receptiveness to OPEC+'s moves were "an insult to Americans who are still suffering from record high gas prices." BATTLE OVER LOW-EMISSIONS GAS STANDARDS: Oil and gas companies Antero Resources and Coterra Energy are pushing back on FERC's decision to reject the Tennessee Pipeline Company's "responsibly-sourced gas" proposal intended to make it easier to buy and sell low-emissions natural gas. The commission had rejected the proposal in large part because it laid out specific criteria for how to measure whether gas is considered "responsibly sourced" and FERC did not want to endorse any one standard given the absence of federal guidelines around methane emissions in the oil and gas sector. But in separate requests for rehearing filed Wednesday and Thursday, the companies argued FERC should require the Kinder Morgan subsidiary to include some set criteria, because it otherwise gives Tennessee Pipeline "a stranglehold" over developing terms for the nascent market. EPA TIGHTENS EMISSIONS LIMITS FOR GASOLINE TERMINALS: EPA plans to strengthen hazardous air pollution requirements for gasoline distribution facilities and bulk terminals, according to a proposed rule signed this week. The technical updates will cost the industry $67 million in capital costs and $3.4 million in annual compliance costs, with EPA arguing the changes are "not expected to result in a significant market impact." The proposal, Reg. 2060-AU97, would curb hazardous pollutants by 2,220 tons per year and volatile organic compounds by over 45,000 tons annually, EPA said. However, the rule would have climate "disbenefits" by increasing CO2 emissions by over half a million tons through 2040, a byproduct of the pollution controls, according to EPA. The proposal will be open for public comment for 60 days once published in the Federal Register.
| | | | 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. | | | | | | | | — Kandis Boyd joins EPA as director of its Chesapeake Bay Program. She previously worked as a strategic adviser in the National Science Foundation's Office of Equity and Civil Rights. Boyd starts on June 6. — Preethy Thangaraj has been promoted to be policy adviser for energy and environment for N.J. Gov. Phil Murphy.
| | | — "Once eager to drill, oil companies exit leases in Arctic refuge," via The Washington Post. — "Ford plans to add 6,200 jobs in Ohio, Michigan and Missouri," via ABC News. — " Rosneft appoints Mandarin speaker to lead company's global trading," via Reuters. — "China Automakers Join Government With Incentives to Boost Sales," via Bloomberg. THAT'S ALL FOR ME! | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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