Daily on Energy: Is the huge clean energy and climate bill passage a model for Biden?

Democrats and environmental groups are calling the package, the biggest emission-reducing legislation to pass in over a decade (see more on why below), a “downpayment” on more aggressive plans from Biden.

But Republicans are positioning the achievement as showing the importance of funding next-generation energy technologies without government mandates.

“This legislation gives momentum to getting more carbon reduction policies enacted into law, but that doesn’t mean Biden’s plan to address climate change has an easy path,” said Heather Reams, executive director of the conservative Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, adding the agreement was bipartisan because “it has no heavy-handed government mandates.”

There’s a problem with that logic though: The agreement to phase down hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, a potent climate-warming refrigerant, by 85% by 2035, is in essence a mandate.

In fact, it is the only major provision we can think of that directly sets out reductions in a specific greenhouse gas, and the underlying HFC legislation had as many Senate Republican cosponsors as there were Democrats.

So why not a carbon mandate? That doesn’t mean Biden should count on Republican support for requiring zero-carbon power by 2035 through a clean electricity standard.

Because, well, there’s a difference. Business groups led by the Chamber of Commerce supported the HFC phaseout because companies collectively have spent billions of dollars researching a replacement coolant for use in air conditioners and refrigerators.

“There is an emerging market for alternative products, creating new job opportunities and preserving existing jobs,” Reams said.

As Republicans see it, there is not yet an equal replacement for the fossil fuels output districts would lose by constraining carbon, although accelerating the clean energy transition could provide economic opportunities too.

“There are certainly approaches to CO2 emissions reductions where industry could give Republicans cover, especially if they can make a strong business case for how these provisions will drive capital investment, create jobs, and reduce emissions,” said Shane Skelton, a former energy aide to GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan and a partner at S2C Pacific. “But, it’s hard work, it takes time, effort, and a willingness to listen and compromise,” Skelton told Josh.

The more likely path: That doesn’t mean Biden can’t get more wins through Congress. Just expect the safest bet to be more spending on clean energy innovation, with an extra focus on infrastructure.

“There is a growing bipartisan majority in favor of advanced energy technology measures in infrastructure legislation next year, aimed at jumpstaring the U.S. economy and delivering long-term growth,” Paul Bledsoe, a former Senate and Clinton White House staff member, now with the Progressive Policy Institute, told Josh.

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.

SO…THAT ENERGY PACKAGE WAS KINDA LIKE A BIG DEAL: Did Congress just quietly pass the most expansive package of provisions ever implemented to deal with climate change?

An analysis by the Rhodium Group this morning doesn’t quite go that far, but the research firm says the package “represents the most significant action on climate and energy in over a decade.” The most comparable action would have to be the 2009 Recovery Act, which dedicated $90 billion to clean energy programs credited with lowering the cost of wind and solar.

The new package is headlined by a measure to phase down HFCs, which Rhodium calls the “single most effective” emission reduction action taken by Congress in over a decade.

Over the next 15 years, the HFC phasedown would reduce 900 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, more than the total annual emissions of Germany, Rhodium says.

Holy carbon capture: Perhaps more surprisingly, the second biggest emissions reduction measure in the package is poised to be the two-year extension of the 45Q carbon capture credit, which the group says can play a big role in helping decarbonizing the tricky industrial sector, and to a lesser extent, electricity.

Additional carbon capture projects as a result of the lengthened subsidies could reduce as much as 585 million tons over 15 years, more than the annual emissions of Australia. Extending the tax credit until the end of 2025 would drive an additional 53 to 113 million tons of capture capacity that would not have happened otherwise.

Together, the HFC phasedown and carbon capture subsidies over the next 15 years would more than offset Trump’s rollbacks of emissions standards for cars and trucks and removal of direct methane regulations on oil and gas operations, Rhodium projected.

There’s more: And that’s not even mentioning the $35 billion pegged in the package for clean energy innovation to research, develop, and deploy a range of technologies, including advanced nuclear power, energy storage, carbon capture utilization, and direct air capture.

These investments “will help prepare the U.S for deeper decarbonization in the 2030s and beyond as new technologies become commercial.”

GOP OVERSIGHT OF BIDEN CLIMATE ‘CZARS’ COULD BE LIMITED: Neither of the well-known, Obama-era veterans Biden has tapped to lead his climate agenda in the White House will be in Senate-confirmed positions, restricting congressional Republicans’ oversight of their positions to largely political noise.

Conservatives are suggesting that former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, Biden’s national climate adviser, and former Secretary of State John Kerry, Biden’s special climate envoy, could wield more influence than his picks for Cabinet secretaries. They’re saying GOP senators should ask tough questions of Biden’s Cabinet nominees about the relationship with the White House climate office.

“Those questions are totally legitimate and very important,” said Clint Woods, a former Trump EPA air official who is now a regulatory policy fellow at Americans for Prosperity. “The worst thing in the world would [be] to have an entirely unaccountable climate change policy regime operated out of the White House without any connection to the agencies that have been OKed and granted authority by Congress,” he told Abby.

Republicans balked during the Obama administration at far-reaching climate posts that don’t answer to congressional scrutiny in the same way agency heads do. But Democrats close to Biden’s team say GOP opposition is simply political theatrics that won’t deter the incoming administration from implementing policies to curb emissions.

More in Abby’s story posted this morning.

CONFIRMATION SEASON IS HERE: More than 25 environmental and progressive groups launched a campaign today to encourage confirmation of Biden’s nominees for his “climate team.”

The campaign, dubbed Confirm Climate, will promote and defend nominees to more than 50 climate-related cabinet and sub-cabinet level positions across the federal government. It will also engage with Senators who will vote on confirmation.

“Congress should quickly confirm President-Elect Biden’s nominees so that they can lead a recovery that grows our economy, fights climate change and addresses environmental injustices that have persisted for generations,” said Elizabeth Gore, senior vice president of political affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund, which is leading the campaign with the Center for American Progress, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, and others.

COMING LATER TODAY: The EPA will release an overhaul to its regulation targeting lead poisoning in drinking water, the first major updates to the rule in two decades that comes six years after the contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler has touted the EPA’s effort to update the rules, initiated by his predecessor Scott Pruitt, but environmentalists and former EPA officials have argued the proposal the agency released last year isn’t strict enough.

The final rule appears similar to what the agency proposed, according to a Wall Street Journal report, including a lower requirement for utilities to replace at least 3% of their lead service lines each year (down from a 7% requirement in the 1991 rule). Wheeler has pushed back on criticism that the rule is too weak, however, saying the updates close loopholes that would have allowed utilities to replace only parts of lines or take other narrower actions to satisfy the requirements.

AUTOMAKERS ARE PREPARING FOR BIDEN: Biden has made big promises to boost electric cars, a sharp break from the Trump administration’s vehicle policies that already has some car companies shifting gears, Abby reports for this week’s Washington Examiner magazine.

In the wake of Biden’s election win, two car companies — General Motors and Nissan — have dropped their support of the Trump administration’s fight with California over tailpipe greenhouse gas standards and touted their investments in electric cars. Those companies, and others such as Ford that initially sided with California on stricter fuel economy standards, are urging their peers to join them.

Overall, the Biden administration “opens up the possibility and makes it more economically attractive to move faster” on electric vehicles, said Lea Malloy, head of research and development at Cox Automotive Mobility. Read more in the full story.

MORE ADVANCED NUCLEAR FUNDING: The Energy Department announced today it is providing another $20 million to U.S. companies seeking a breakthrough in developing smaller nuclear reactors.

The grant funding from the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program comes on top of $160 million DOE distributed in October to two companies that intend to develop and construct small nuclear reactors that can be operational within five to seven years.

It also comes after DOE earmarked $30 million to five additional companies for “risk reduction projects” in earlier phases of development.

The new funding is the third and final leg of the program, supporting so-called ARC-20 projects in only the concept stage of development. The recipients are Advanced Reactor Concepts’ small modular reactor, General Atomics’ fast modular reactor, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s high temperature gas reactor.

PROGRESS ON ENERGY DEPARTMENT’S VERSATILE TEST NUCLEAR REACTOR: The Energy Department yesterday published a draft environmental impact assessment for constructing a Versatile Test Reactor. DOE chose the Idaho National Lab as its preferred site for building the reactor, which would be sodium-cooled and provide a fast neutron spectrum environment for testing new nuclear energy technologies, instead of companies having to build such facilities themselves or relying on foreign countries.

“The VTR will help ensure that DOE and our industry partners can develop innovative nuclear technologies to supply the United States, and the world, with abundant carbon-free energy,” said Rita Baranwal, assistant secretary for nuclear energy.

NORTHEAST PLAN TO CAP TAILPIPE EMISSIONS STARTS SMALL: Just three states — Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island — and D.C. announced yesterday they were formally joining a cap-and-invest program to reduce tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions, a much smaller number than the 11 states who backed the proposal late last year.

The program, known as the Transportation Climate Initiative, would operate similarly to the Northeast’s cap-and-trade system limiting power plant emissions, requiring large gas and diesel fuel suppliers to essentially pay to pollute. The proceeds would then be reinvested, with the initial four participants pledging to dedicate at least 35% to minority and low-income regions.

Altogether, the program is expected to slash tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 26% between 2022 and 2032 and generate more than $3 billion over that decade, according to a news release from the states.

Eight other states who’d initially supported the plan said yesterday they are leaving open the possibility of joining the program in the future.

The Rundown

Reuters US shale oil just had its worst year and the pain could bleed into 2021

Bloomberg Five easy things Biden can do on climate, plus two he can’t

Washington Post In confronting climate change, Biden won’t have a day to waste

Calendar

TUESDAY | DEC. 22

The House and Senate are out of session for the holidays.