| | | | |  | | By Matthew Choi | Presented by Equinor | With help from Catherine Morehouse, Sam Sabin and Zack Colman 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 Biden administration's emergency solar action will need financial support from Congress. But some lawmakers are not too thrilled with the part of the plan pausing solar tariffs. — The House Science Committee will tackle methane emissions in the oil and gas industry during a hearing today. — TSA took criticisms of its pipeline cybersecurity rules to heart and will make them "performance based" and less "prescriptive." HAPPY WEDNESDAY! I'm your host, Matthew Choi, still utterly mystified by this "caviar bumps" story . Anyway, mabrouk to Fatima Ahmad, senior counsel at the House Climate Crisis Committee, for knowing Gibraltar comes from the Arabic for "Rock of Tariq". For today's trivia: Who was the first British royal to compete in the Olympics? 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: Friendly fire strafes Biden's climate office.
| | | | | 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. | | | | | | THE DOLLARS BEHIND DPA: President Joe Biden's use of the Defense Production Act to keep the solar industry afloat still needs funding from Congress, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm acknowledged Tuesday. And not everyone on the Hill is super thrilled about the White House plans, POLITICO's Kelsey Tamborrino, Josh Siegel and Gavin Bade report. The White House's accompanying announcement that it wouldn't add any new tariffs on solar part imports for the next two years got a frosty reception from some members who felt it was undermining the administration's own probe into potential trade violations. Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden said doing so gave him "serious concerns" about "gifting" Chinese solar producers at the expense of U.S. manufacturing. Granholm said she would work with lawmakers to make sure funding for the DPA action would be enough to offer market security to solar producers to ramp up production and bring more of the supply chain home. Congress appropriated $388 million for the DPA under its fiscal year 2022 omnibus, along with a carried over balance of $156 million. Carrying out the president's plans would require appropriations in fiscal year 2023, wrote Dan Whitten, vice president of public affairs at the Solar Energy Industries Association. Read more from Kelsey, Josh and Gavin here.
| | | METHANE ON MY MIND: The House Science Committee dives into the oil and gas sector's methane emissions today, convening a hearing with scientists who have been tracking the industry's emissions, including David Lyon of the Environmental Defense Fund and Riley Duren of Carbon Mapper. The hearing will go into both the technical challenges of trapping emissions and the latest innovations in leak detection — and how the federal government can support development of any budding technology. Climate activists and scientists regularly point to methane emissions as a feasible target to help quickly curb temperature rise. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry will speak at a reception hosted by Global Methane Hub today on the importance of reducing methane emissions along with environment ministers from several countries during the Summit of the Americas (for more on the summit, POLITICO's Steven Overly has you covered). THE NUCLEAR OPTIONS: The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hear from two nominees for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission today, Annie Caputo and Bradley Crowell. Caputo has sat on the commission before and now works with the Idaho National Laboratory. Crowell previously worked for former Sen. Richard Bryan (D-Nev.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), as well as the Obama Energy Department, and now leads the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. A BORDER CARBON BILL WITH A PRICE: Whitehouse introduced a bill Tuesday charging $55 per ton for carbon emissions on imported products from energy intensive industries. The Clean Competition Act, which POLITICO's Josh Siegel got an early look at, differs from past carbon border adjustment bills by charging a domestic carbon price to match an imported goods fee — a provision that responds to concerns from economists that a carbon border fee could run afoul of World Trade Organization rules if there isn't a matching tax at home. "Having a specific price really streamlines the timeline on which we could implement it," said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who co-sponsored the Whitehouse bill with Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.). Read more from Josh here. YELLEN SETS EXPECTATIONS: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had a sobering assessment on the inflation afflicting Americans during her appearance before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday. While she reiterated the Biden administration's conviction to curb energy revenues from flowing into Russia, she said it was "virtually impossible for us to insulate ourselves from shocks like the ones that are occurring in Russia that move global oil prices." The World Bank warned Tuesday that energy prices are set to rise 52 percent this year before moderating in 2023 as oil and gas production slowly moves online to replace Russian exports. National average gasoline prices inched ever closer to the $5 mark Tuesday, hitting yet another all-time high of $4.919. Yellen said the growing energy prices should be a sign to invest heavily in domestic clean energy through legislation such as Democrats' Build Back Better package. Read more from POLITICO's Victoria Guida.
| | | | 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. | | | | | | | | MENDING FENCES: For months, the Transportation Security Administration and the oil and gas industry have been in impassioned debates about whether the agency's cybersecurity rules are actually possible. Attendees at the RSA cybersecurity conference Tuesday got a glimpse of what those closed-door conversations have looked like with TSA cyber coordinator Tim Weston and Suzanne Lemieux, director of operations security at the American Petroleum Institute, indicating the agency is responding to feedback on new pipeline security rules to make them more "performance based" and less prescriptive. "Rather than having one solid set of standards that apply to everyone, we're now going to have 100 or more different standards," Weston said. The security rules TSA handed down last July were only meant to be in place for one year, and the agency is aiming to get these new changes in effect later this summer to replace those. Weston said TSA will need more inspectors to conduct inspections at affected companies to make sure they're complying with the more customizable cybersecurity rules — especially since they'll have to comb through at least 100 possible standards under a performance-based model. FERC OFFICIAL AIMS TO TACKLE NIMBYISM: Elin Katz, FERC's director of the relatively new Office of Public Participation, is thinking about how to avoid more disorderly forms of public engagement that have plagued FERC and the power sector in recent years — such as demonstrations and lawsuits against new energy infrastructure, including pipelines. She also hopes to better educate the public about the benefits of electric transmission in particular to mitigate the "NIMBYism" often associated with the large-scale power lines needed to decarbonize the power grid. "One of my main goals is to provide a constructive outlet for public concerns," she said during a webinar hosted by utility transmission group WIRES. "We've seen a lot of what I consider more disruptive activities around when the public becomes concerned about energy or infrastructure." Katz also said questions remain around whether the office would provide intervenor funding — a program that would cover expenses for lower-budget groups to participate in FERC proceedings. FERC commissioners would have to approve such a mechanism, and there remains a lot of questions around how that program would be funded if it were to be adopted, she said. "To me, it's more about is this a good idea, is there a workable model? And then if there is, is there money to pay for it?" CARMAKERS HAVE CALIFORNIA'S BACK: Five automakers — Ford, Volkswagen, BMW, Honda and Volvo — on Tuesday jumped to EPA's defense in red states' litigation over California's auto waiver that lets it regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles. Sharp ME readers will recall those were the five automakers who struck a voluntary deal with California when the Trump administration was planning to ease federal standards. And all five touted their plans to go electric. "California emissions regulation has helped to maintain a level playing field as the industry continuously innovates and uses ever-lower-emitting technologies," the companies argued. "Confirming the validity of the Waiver Decision will promote stability and regulatory certainty while the industry goes electric." BAKER CONFIRMED: Shalanda Baker is set to lead DOE's Office of Economic Impact and Diversity after the Senate voted 54-45 in favor of her confirmation. EPA UNION LEANS INTO CONTRACT TALKS: EPA's biggest union is seeking new scientific integrity protections for its workers, as well as new diversity and anti-discrimination provisions. AFGE Council 238, which represents 7,500 EPA workers, has started bargaining for a new contract, with the current one expiring in June 2024. The new provisions touch on topics on which the union openly clashed with the Trump administration. President Marie Owens Powell told members on Zoom last night that she is aiming to lock down their new contract — for possibly as long as 10 years — before the 2024 election and potential change in administration. NYT VS DOE: The New York Times sued the Energy Department on Tuesday over a FOIA request related to business interests connected to Sen. Joe Manchin's family. The Times has been one of several publications, including POLITICO's E&E News , diving into Manchin's family coal interests. The newspaper wrote in its suit that Manchin's hardline stance against legislation that would eliminate the burning of fossil fuels while also acknowledging human-caused climate change "has raised numerous questions about whether his business interests and deep, long-running relationships with the coal industry have affected his actions as a public official."
| | | GREENS LAY OUT MIDTERM STRATEGY: Environmental groups' combined $100 million midterm campaign will focus on Senate races in Arizona, New Hampshire, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania along with a "fluid" list of House contests to keep climate-focused Democrats in power, Heather Hargreaves, executive director of the newly formed Climate Power Action, told ME. Climate Power Action is organizing polling and messaging to identify and reach voters who supported climate-focused candidates in 2020 but are at risk of not voting in the midterm, where Democratic losses of one or both chambers of Congress would imperil Biden's climate agenda. The strategy is a shift from the 2020 focus on swing voters by instead zeroing in on so-called "dropoff" voters, Hargreaves said. Environmental groups involved in the effort hope they can reach what they believe are 2 million such climate-influenced individuals with paid media and a return to in-person canvassing. Partners in the push include the Climate Reality Action Fund, Environmental Defense Fund Action Votes, League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council Action Votes and NextGen PAC.
| | | | 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. | | | | | | | | — The American Petroleum Institute announced Stephen Comstock as its new vice president and senior counselor for policy, economics and regulatory affairs and Aaron Padilla as its new vice president for corporate policy.
| | | — "How the Biden administration is battling extreme heat," via POLITICO. — "Lyondell would shut Houston oil refinery early on major equipment failure," via Reuters. — " A factory wants to reopen making 'green' aluminum. Now it just needs clean energy," via The Washington Post. — "Automakers back U.S. restoring California emissions authority," via Reuters. — "Why Is Eco-Conscious California Spending Millions to Support Natural Gas?" via Capital and Main. 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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