Capitol Light/Climate Politics

Daily Tidbits for June 20, 2023

The Senate will convene at 3 p.m. on Tuesday June 20, 2023 to resume consideration of the nomination of Julie Rikelman to be a United States Circuit Court judge for the First Circuit.

Highway Robbery? Some states are warning the Environmental Protection Agency that its proposed vehicle emissions rules would dry up a key source of funding for new transportation infrastructure and stunt needed expansions and improvements to the nation’s roads.

Red states say the rules would dry up the highway trust fund: Five Western states asked EPA to reconsider the pace at which it proposes to impose stricter emissions regulations for model year 2027 and later vehicles so that infrastructure funding via the Highway Trust Fund, which is financed by the federal gasoline tax, doesn’t become a victim of a transition to EVs.

It’s one of several economic lines of attack that opponents of the proposed EV-forcing rules have leveled against them since EPA proposed them in April, the other leading one being the higher cost of battery-electric vehicles, especially semi-trucks, relative to combustion-driven models. (Washington Examiner)

Comment: Although it seems that the red states are the only ones complaining, their point is well taken. No gasoline tax, no highway fund unless alternative funding can be found—likely in the form of additional taxes or direct funding from the federal government. Neither of these options are particularly popular in these times of inflation economic uncertainty. The simple truth is that EVs need the same road improvements as gas-powered vehciles.

Europe is hot, hot, hot. Europe had the warmest-ever summer on record in 2022 and has warmed twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to a sobering new report published today by the World Meteorological Organization and the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). According to the report, temperatures on the continent rose to 2.3C above the pre-industrial average as of last summer, contributing to “thousands” of deaths.

The report, which was presented today at the European Climate Change Adaptation Conference’s sixth annual meeting in Dublin, estimates the damage from the high heat last summer totaled some $2 billion in damage, including from marine heat waves, floods, and other extreme weather events. Europe experienced several “exceptional” heat waves, the report said, with some countries seeing their highest-ever temperatures on record (including in the UK, where summer temperatures reached a record 104 degrees Fahrenheit). (Washington Examiner)

Comment: If there’s a silver lining in this, it’s the fact that most European nations are more amenable to solar and wind than the US. The Ukraine war has seen a surge in the use of solar and wind in many European countries because of drop offs in Russian supplies and logistics associated with importing LNG.

McCarthy in the middle: As lawmakers prepare for a fight over government spending ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has endorsed a conservative push to write appropriations bills at fiscal year 2022 levels, well below levels set by the debt limit deal. (Punchbowl News)

Comment: All of Washington is waiting to see how deft McCarthy is in keeping the 30 or 40 ultra-right members of his caucus happy, while not losing the support of conservative and moderate members. The loss of the more moderate members of the GOP House caucus likely means they’ll vote with their cross-aisle colleagues as they did in passing the debt ceiling deal. With the 2024 election just around the corner there’s going to be a lot of pressure on both McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader McConnell to get something done.

There’s a message here: House Republicans easily passed two measures aimed at blocking any future gas stove regulations. One bill deals with the Energy Department’s proposal for efficiency requirements and the other targets the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s authority for banning the appliances. 

Both measures are unlikely to be picked up by the Democratic-led Senate. The move comes after Republicans from the House Freedom Caucus made their debt-ceiling frustrations known in the first week of June by blocking the initial advancement of the two bills. (Morning Consult)

Comment: It’s easy for House Republicans to pass their messaging bills out of House committees they control. With Democrats in charge of the Senate and White House the various bills and resolutions reflecting the far-right’s agenda won’t be enacted. Where there will be serious conflicts is over the appropriations bills with the looming threat of a government shutdown.

Hey buddy, can you loan me a milliion or two? Resources for the Future on Tuesday will host a webinar featuring Jigar Shah, the director of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office. 

 The webinar will focus on financing the energy transition and how the public and private sectors can work together. Last week, in a boost to the public sector, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service released guidance that would provide tax-exempt institutions like state, city and local governments and nonprofits with ways to cash in on clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act. The move could to a faster adoption of electric vehicle fleets and rooftop solar while also helping rural community cooperatives adopt renewables more quickly. (Resources for the Future)

Comment: Props should be given to the Biden administration for its efforts to move Inflation Reduction Act money out the door. Beyond wanting to spur the growth of the domestic clean energy sector, the administration knows that monies obligated to projects and programscan’t easily be called back should the Republicans sweep the 2024 national elections.

Keep on truckin’: Republicans are continuing to put pressure on the Biden administration’s climate agenda. Last week, Biden vetoed a GOP measure that would have overturned the EPA’s heavy-duty truck pollution rule, which aims to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides by half by 2045. Republicans like Fallon have said the rule would mean high costs for the auto industry and customers.  (Washington Post)

COP to it: The United Nations will require delegates attending COP28 to disclose their affiliations, including an option to provide information on their relationship with the agency or organization that nominated them to attend the summit in Dubai. (Fox News)

Comment: Transparency is the name of this game. The fossil fuel folks have sent hundreds to prior COP meetings. People just want to know who is representing whom? With this year’s conference in Dubai, organizers feel a greater need to defend against charges that the entire effort is a scam by oil and gas interests.

Does the Department of Interior have a deal for you?  A new regulation will formalize a roughly 80 percent cut in project fees for wind and solar energy developments on federal lands under a proposal by the Biden administration on Thursday as part of a strategy to boost renewable energy to fight climate change.

Last year the Interior Department's U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had lowered rent fees and lease rates for solar and wind by about 50 percent, using departmental authority, after developers complained they were too high to draw investment.

Thursday's proposal from the Interior Department would deepen those fee reductions and enshrine the changes in a formal regulation - making them harder to reverse under a future political administration. (Reuters)

But you promised: Champions for poor, Black and brown communities that have lived for decades with polluting infrastructure are angry that the Biden administration would propose retrofitting fossil fuel plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS) or hydrogen capacities instead of just shutting them down. They say the EPA proposal runs counter to the Biden administration’s emphasis on environmental equity.

“I think it’s really a betrayal of a lot of the promises that the Biden administration has made to keep our communities whole and to repair some of the harms from the past,” said Juan Jhong-Chung, climate justice director at the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition.

“We know that CCS and hydrogen will extend the life of some coal and gas plants, and that’s actually going to harm many communities,” he added. “So yeah, it was really disappointing to hear that those two technologies are being suggested as possible paths for power plants to decarbonize.”

EPA’s proposal for new and existing natural gas- and coal-fired power plants don’t mandate CCS or hydrogen co-firing as the way coal and gas plants would reduce emissions. Rather, the rule stipulates that plants that remain on the grid long term meet emissions limits that are consistent with those technologies. The standard applies to all coal plants and to the biggest natural gas plants.

In broad strokes, EPA’s draft regulations give power plant owners a choice: They can retrofit their fossil fuels fleet, or they can retire it. The proposal — which EPA is taking comment on through July 24 — allows more than a decade for units to retrofit or exit the grid. EPA’s supporting documents show it’s betting the overwhelming majority will choose the latter option. But the proposal is expected to spur a marginal increase in deployment of coal with CCS and gas plants burning hydrogen. (E&E News)

Comment: The Biden administration shouldn’t count on the support of communities of color and low incomes because of the alternatives. Although voters in these communities may not vote for the Republican presidential nominee, their not showing up at the polls could easily swing the outcome of the 2024 election.

Notwithstanding efforts to make good on the promised 40 percent of climate-related funding going towards energy and climate justice, the administration looks to be falling short. From where I sit, Biden should have known how difficult it would be to meet that target.

Just talking about it is bad enough: Republican attacks on the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits may be negatively impacting the sector, some industry players and experts say. As The Hill’s Rachel Frazin reports, they say the GOP’s efforts to eliminate the subsidies risks creating uncertainty for investments — especially with potential financial backers nervously looking ahead to next year’s elections. The broader clean energy sector has touted the credits included in the Democrats’ climate, tax and health care bill as transformative, saying they are piquing new investments. (The Hill)

Comment: Markets hate uncertainty.

Tick, tock: The metaphorical budget clock is ticking. Lawmakers are back in Washington today, and they have 102 days to avert a potential government shutdown at the end of September. But between now and then, Congress will be in recess for the Fourth of July and work from their districts for the August break. That leaves 12 days in session in September — and plenty of work to be done before then. (The Hill)

Comment: Time waits for no one.

Lead image courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol.