Utility group turns against Biden’s climate rule

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May 23, 2024 View in browser   By Arianna Skibell Presented by Chevron Dan Brouillette, the former Energy secretary under former President Donald Trump, is the leader of the Edison Electric Institute. | Armando Franca/AP The Edison Electric Institute’s decision to sue the Biden administration over its climate rule for power plants is unusual. The nation’s top trade group for investor-owned utilities generally keeps its nose out of environmental rulemaking given the diversity of opinion among its members, write Benjamin Storrow and Jean Chemnick. Environmental groups have speculated that the organization’s new chief may have something to do with the shift: CEO Dan Brouillette ran the Energy Department under former President Donald Trump, who famously dismissed climate change as a hoax. But Brouillette insists that the basis of the lawsuit, filed Wednesday, is rooted in a more practical concern: technological readiness. The Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule relies heavily on carbon capture technology that scrubs heat-trapping pollution from power plants before it hits the atmosphere. EPA’s regulation, finished last month, would effectively require some new natural gas power plants and all coal-fired units to begin capturing emissions for permanent storage by 2032 or retire by 2039. Brouillette said in a statement that the technology is not “adequately demonstrated for broad deployment across our industry” and that “EPA’s implementation timelines do not align with the current reality.” Carbon capture and storage technology has a long track record of failing in the United States. And as of 2021, the world’s operational plants were capable of capturing and storing only a few thousand metric tons of pollution each year. But the technology’s future is looking brighter. Planned projects around the world jumped 102 percent last year amid an uptick in developer interest. The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law allocated billions of dollars to grow the nation’s carbon capture and storage capabilities. And the massive, $1 billion Petra Nova plant in Texas — once a symbol of carbon capture’s failure — has reopened after closing down in 2020 amid an economic downturn and fluctuating oil prices. EPA argues carbon capture is ready for prime time — and has drawn parallels to a 1970s-era rule that required power plants to install scrubbers to limit sulfur dioxide pollution. At the time, such scrubber technology was less commercially available than carbon capture is now. The agency has cast the rule as routine, in the hope it will avoid the fate of former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which was struck down by the Supreme Court. The Obama-era rule was all-but-supported by EEI, which filed an amicus brief defending EPA’s regulatory authority. Not every EEI member utility opposes EPA’s new power plant rule. Pacific Gas & Electric, a California-based utility, said it is exploring intervening with other power companies in defense of the new regulation.   It's Thursday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Arianna Skibell. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to askibell@eenews.net.   A message from Chevron: Chevron knows methane management is critical for a lower carbon future. We’re striving to lead in methane management with innovative practices, partnerships, and new technologies. These are a few ways we’re aiming to keep methane in the pipe.   Listen to today’s POLITICO Energy podcast Today in POLITICO Energy’s podcast: Ben Lefebvre and Josh Siegel break down how oil majors have become increasingly enmeshed in this year's election mishegoss. Power Centers Lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, stand in front of environmental advocates during a press conference Thursday. | Emma Dumain/POLITICO's E&E News Oil attack week Democrats are escalating their attack on the oil industry for alleged collusion and price fixing, upping the political ante in all directions, from committee chairs to the party's most senior member of Congress, write Ben Lefebvre and Emma Dumain. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced he plans to send a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, requesting the Justice Department “investigate and prosecute.” “There is something wrong, very wrong, when big oil companies rake in the cash while polluting the atmosphere at the expense of the American people," he said. Biden's agencies fail to Trump-proof California rules The Biden administration has yet to grant California permission to implement eight of its pioneering climate and air pollution rules, making them vulnerable to a potential second Trump administration, writes Blanca Begert. Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt confirmed the former president would try to revoke California's pollution rules "to stop Joe Biden and his far-left cronies from implementing a ban on gasoline-powered automobiles anywhere in America." Who will profit from a bigger grid? In issuing its landmark electric grid rule, the nation's top energy regulator excluded a provision that would have given monopoly utilities the exclusive right to propose multibillion-dollar projects in their service area, writes Jeffrey Tomich. That means states will decide who gets to build — and profit from — thousands of miles of long-distance power lines carrying clean energy. Prepare for a dramatic uptick in utility lobbying at the state level. In Other News Public health: Why cancer-causing pollution from oil refineries is falling. Classroom battles: Graduating seniors are seeking degrees in climate change, and more U.S. universities are delivering.   A message from Chevron:   Subscriber Zone A showcase of some of our best subscriber content. Portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed the night before the chemical burn in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 4, 2023. | Gene J. Puskar/AP Norfolk Southern has agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in a deal with the Biden administration to restore East Palestine, the Ohio town devastated by last year's fiery train wreck and chemical spill. A group of 19 GOP-led states is trying a new strategy to get the Supreme Court to quash more than two dozen climate damage cases that could put fossil fuel producers on the hook for billions of dollars. Federal scientists have forecast a record hurricane season in the Atlantic this year, driven by a likely La Niña weather pattern and soaring water temperatures in the tropics. That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.   A message from Chevron: By 2028, our upstream methane intensity target is set to be 53% below the 2016 baseline. To help us get there, we’ve trialed 14 advanced methane technologies including satellites, planes, drones, and fixed sensors to help reduce methane emissions intensity. In the Permian, we have deployed real-time autonomous optimizers that continuously monitor facilities and well conditions to help prevent flaring, venting and well shutdowns. Developing new solutions to provide energy that’s affordable, reliable and ever-cleaner, that’s energy in progress.     Follow us on Twitter Arianna Skibell @ariannaskibell   Follow us

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