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A REMINDER THAT THE ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC FIELD IS RUNNING TO THE LEFT: As Super Tuesday arrives, it’s an important moment to recognize that the 2020 Democratic field collectively is proposing a sweeping, progressive agenda to combat climate change like never seen before.
“Looking at their commitments and statements, none of these candidates is a moderate on energy,” Kevin Book, managing director for research at ClearView Energy, told Josh.
With energy-producing states such as Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado set to vote Tuesday, ClearView released a research note documenting how each of the remaining four candidates (we are discounting non-factor Tulsi Gabbard) has campaigned on significantly tighter regulations governing oil, gas, and coal.
The oil-and-gas sector could “face stark regulatory reversals if any of the remaining Democrats won,” ClearView wrote.
There are differences: (Despite President Trump’s habit of lumping the field together as anti-energy Democrats — see more on that below).
Unlike Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, neither Michael Bloomberg or Joe Biden has campaigned on banning fracking or oil exports.
Sanders is hostile to nuclear energy, seeing no place for it, while Warren is skeptical of it and Bloomberg and Biden are quiet about it.
Sanders would spend the most money — $16 trillion — but Biden’s $5 trillion “clean energy revolution” plan is not so modest either. Biden says it would be “well beyond” the agenda he undertook in the Obama administration, with its goal (essentially shared by the field, with slightly different time frames) of having the U.S. achieve net-zero emissions no later than 2050.
Even Bloomberg, positioning himself as the above-it-all centrist, has pledged to stop the construction of new natural gas plants, despite his opposition to banning fracking.
“Bloomberg would be more hawkish on climate than anyone anticipates,” Book said. “ His Bloomberg Philanthropies has already said it will be entirely focused on defeating oil and gas once the low-hanging fruit of coal is gone. I would like to take him at his word.”
Explaining the sea change: Brandon Hurlbut, a campaign adviser for President Obama’s 2008 campaign who was later chief of staff at the Energy Department, says grassroots pressure, along with increasing urgency around the science of climate change, has forced Democrats to up the ante.
“When Bernie rails against the fossil fuel industry, that is where he is galvanizing support from the grassroots,” Hurlbut told Josh, noting how the influential youth group Sunrise Movement has endorsed Sanders. “A lot of his support comes from that very clear demarcation. It’s become so hard for Democrats to be associated with any policy they view as enabling the fossil fuel industry.”
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe) and Abby Smith (@AbbySmithDC). Email [email protected] or [email protected] for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
TRUMP’S SUPER TUESDAY ATTACK ON BLOOMBERG: The president attacked Bloomberg, a frequent target, ahead of Super Tuesday voting, incorrectly accusing the billionaire former New York City mayor of trying to “kill” fracking.
“Texas & Oklahoma: Mini Mike Bloomberg will kill your drilling, fracking and pipelines. Petroleum based ‘anything’ is dead. Energy jobs gone. Don’t vote for Mini Mike!” Trump tweeted, referencing two fossil fuel-producing states that vote Tuesday.
Perhaps more fitting targets for Trump would have been fracking opponents Sanders or Warren, both of whom also call for revoking permits for the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, while rejecting permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure projects.
KLOBUCHAR’S LEGACY ON CLIMATE POLICY: Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar exited the presidential primary Monday, leaving the race with one less centrist voice.
Klobuchar spoke frequently of the risks of climate change to the Midwest with worsening floods, rising sea levels, and warming winters. She advocated for keeping natural gas around as a “transition fuel,” arguing it would still be possible to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 without banning fracking. She was also the last candidate in the race who clearly supported a carbon tax, favoring an approach that returns revenue to taxpayers.
And she frequently touted using presidential authority to strengthen regulations over power plants and vehicle efficiency, while re-entering the Paris Agreement.
IT’S THE YEAR OF DUAL ENDORSEMENTS: Just like the New York Times, 350 Action couldn’t decide on just one candidate to back.
The advocacy group announced Monday it would endorse progressive candidates Sanders and Warren, both of whom passed their climate policy test. Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, who has now exited the race, also passed the test, which ranks candidates based on whether they’ve supported the Green New Deal, signed the “No Fossil Fuel Money” pledge, and have plans to keep fossil fuels in the ground and scrutinize fossil fuel companies’ role in climate change.
“From holding the fossil fuel industry accountable, to challenging those making dirty money from the climate crisis, to making sure we keep all fossil fuels in the ground, we believe both Senators speak to the types of leadership we need in the climate decade,” 350 Action executive director May Boeve said in a statement.
CLIMATE CHANGE DOESN’T FACTOR IN TRUMP’S THEORY OF TRADE: U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Monday the reason why the Trump administration doesn’t include climate change language in its trade deals is that such terms would prevent them from completing agreements.
“We have an obligation to help real working people … there’s no point in being so ambitious we don’t end up with an agreement at all,” Lighthizer said, according to our trade reporter Sean Higgins.
Trade policy “should not be dictated by theories or orthodoxies, it should be ruthlessly pragmatic,” Lighthizer added.
The Trump administration has kept climate change out of trade deals, such as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and its “phase one” deal with China, despite demands from liberal groups and Democratic lawmakers.
“This allows oil and gas companies to continue to put profits ahead of our air, water, climate, and health,” Sanders said when the Senate voted to ratify USMCA in January.
FERC NOMINEE CLEARS COMMITTEE BUT DEMOCRATS ARE PISSED: Even West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, the sole Democrat who supported James Danly’s nomination to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said next time, Democrats won’t vote unless the White House puts forward a Democratic nominee, too.
Typically, nominees for FERC are considered in Republican/Democratic pairings, given the commission’s intent to be nonpartisan. The Trump White House, however, has refused in the last year to propose a Democratic nominee.
Losing leverage: “If we’re going to approve one without requiring the other, there’s no incentive for the White House to put anyone else forward,” said Maine’s Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, following Tuesday’s 12-8 vote clearing Danly. “We’ve given them what they wanted here.”
‘PENT UP ENERGY’ TO LEGISLATE: Senate Energy Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, along with Manchin, could usher through the biggest update to energy law in more than a decade, so long as the amendment fight doesn’t sink it.
The senators’ bipartisan energy innovation bill overwhelmingly cleared its first hurdle Monday, but already battle lines are emerging over how to alter the bill on the floor.
Democrats are hoping to tack on more clean energy and climate provisions to the bill, including potential extensions to tax incentives for wind, solar, and electric cars. A bipartisan duo of senators is also hoping their bill to limit potent greenhouse gas coolants can get a vote as an amendment to the bill.
Read more of Abby’s coverage of what’s to come here.
EPA ROLLBACKS FAIL SCIENCE TEST, ADVISERS SAY: The result, the agency’s Science Advisory Board said, is the Trump administration’s narrower or weaker regulations could introduce new risks to human health and safety and the environment.
The EPA’s science advisers, many of whom were appointed by Trump officials, sharply criticized the agency’s replacement of Obama-era water quality protections, saying the agency’s narrower rule isn’t consistent with established science, and in some cases, makes no attempt to incorporate the most up-to-date science.
The science advisers reviewed a proposed version of the Trump replacement to the Waters of the U.S., or WOTUS, rule, which has since been finalized with few significant changes. In a letter to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler made public Monday, the science advisers say portions of the WOTUS replacement have “no scientific justification.”
The Science Advisory Board also issued a warning shot on fuel economy: The analysis that forms the basis of the Trump administration’s proposal to freeze the standards contains significant weaknesses, the advisers wrote Wheeler.
The errors are so significant that fixing them could actually tip the scales in favor of maintaining Obama-era fuel economy limits for passenger cars, they find. “In other words, the standards in the 2012 rule might provide a better outcome for society than the proposed revision,” the advisers write.
The Trump White House is reportedly struggling to make the numbers work for the final version of its fuel economy rollback, with suggestions the final rule could slip into the summer.
SPEAKING OF FUEL EFFICIENCY: It’s at a record high, and carbon emissions from new cars are at a record low, according to new EPA data — but Wheeler cautions that doesn’t mean fuel economy rules should be more stringent.
“Once again we see marginal improvements in fuel economy, but they are yet a far cry from the unfeasible Obama Administration’s standards,” Wheeler said in a statement on the EPA’s annual Automotive Trends report, released Monday. He added those concerns are “top of mind” as the EPA and Transportation Department work on revising the Obama rule.
Wheeler often points to a few trends: The increasing push toward SUVs and away from smaller cars, and automakers’ use of banked credits to meet the increasingly stringent standards. Both trends continued for model year 2018 vehicles, according to the EPA report.
But one other thing to note: The EPA data shows for model year 2018, the U.S. big three automakers — Fiat Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors (in that order) — had the highest average carbon emissions for new vehicles and the lowest fuel economy.
THE $34 BILLION EXTRA COST OF LIVING IN FLOODPLAINS: Americans are paying $34 billion too much for houses in floodplains as markets fail to incorporate climate risk, according to a white paper circulated Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
“Our findings indicate that floodplain homes in the U.S. are currently overvalued by a total of $34 billion, raising concerns about the stability of real estate markets as climate risks become more salient and severe,” concludes the working paper, written by researchers at the University of North Carolina and Stanford.
There would be less development in floodplains if asset prices fully reflected the risk of worsening floods from climate change (there are currently about 3.8 million homes in floodplains).
The paper recommends that states enable better communication of climate risk to buyers through stricter real estate disclosure laws or by directly communicating flood risk information to buyers early in their search process.
The vast majority of states currently only require disclosures by the time a contract is signed, meaning few buyers would know about flood risk before they make their offer.
Only two states require that the seller disclose the cost of their insurance policy, which would allow the buyer to evaluate the additional cost of living in a floodplain.
BREAKING DOWN UTILITIES’ CLIMATE TARGETS: More and more utilities are setting either net-zero or 100% carbon-free goals for mid-century, but most of them only know how to get around 80% of the way there.
By setting those goals, power companies are hoping they can help spur greater innovation in emerging energy technologies like advanced nuclear, carbon capture, long-term battery storage, and hydrogen, which many of them think will all be critical to meeting their goals.
But those companies will also start to face some tough questions in the next decade about policy and investment, one of the biggest of which will be what to do about their natural gas plants. Those plants have helped drive much of utilities’ carbon-cutting success so far, but they also cause emissions of greenhouse gases, including methane.
Much more on utilities’ pathway forward, including insights from several power companies, in Abby’s story in this week’s Washington Examiner magazine.
NATURAL GAS LOBBY GETS NEW CHAIR: Diane Leopold, executive vice president and co-chief operating officer at Virginia-based Dominion Energy, will chair the American Gas Association, the group announced Tuesday. Leopold oversees three of Dominion’s operating divisions, including gas distribution and transmission and storage.
The Rundown
New York Times How a pipeline is dividing Minnesota’s Democrats ahead of Super Tuesday
Bloomberg The energy elite have started listening to their enemy no. 1 in Houston
Reuters Ex-boxer mayor seeks EU green funds to get Polish coal town off the ropes
Wall Street Journal Puerto Rico utility deal stumbles, shaking muni investors
Calendar
TUESDAY | MARCH 3
2 p.m. 2362-B Rayburn. The House Appropriations Committee’s Energy and Water Development Subcommittee holds a hearing on the Energy Department’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget request for applied energy programs.
WEDNESDAY | MARCH 4
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 600 14th Street, NW. The American Council on Renewable Energy holds its annual Policy Forum. Speakers include Sens. Ron Wyden and Chris Van Hollen, Reps. Paul Tonko and Garret Graves, and FERC Commissioner Richard Glick.
9:30 a.m. 2359 Rayburn. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler testifies before the House Appropriations Committee’s Interior and Environment Subcommittee on the agency’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget request.
10 a.m. 124 Dirksen. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Interior and Environment Subcommittee on the agency’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget request.
10 a.m. 1324 Longworth, Interior Assistant Secretary Susan Combs testifies before the House Natural Resources Committee on the agency’s Fiscal 2021 budget request.
10:30 a.m. 2322 Rayburn. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee holds a hearing on recycling and waste management in the United States, including its impacts on climate and the environment.
2:30 p.m. 138 Dirksen. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Energy and Water Development Subcommittee on the agency’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget request.
THURSDAY | MARCH 5
10 a.m. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to examine the latest developments and longer-term prospects for global energy markets, with a special focus on the United States, from the perspective of the International Energy Agency.
