| | | | | |  | | By Kelsey Tamborrino | With help from Debra Kahn and Eric Wolff Editor's Note: Morning Energy is a free version of POLITICO Pro Energy's morning newsletter, which is delivered to our subscribers each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day's biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro. | | | | | | | — President-elect Joe Biden will pick Jennifer Granholm to run the Energy Department and Gina McCarthy for his domestic climate policy chief, placing two familiar names in charge of key aspects of his strategy to put the country on a path to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. — Biden will also name former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg for Transportation secretary, another role crucial to cutting emissions. — Meanwhile, California air regulator Mary Nichols touted her civil rights work amid criticism from progressives as her name has been floated for EPA administrator. | | | | BIG SCOOPS IN TRANSITION PLAYBOOK: In the runup to Inauguration Day, president-elect Joe Biden's staffing decisions are sending clear-cut signals about his priorities. What do these signals foretell? Transition Playbook is the definitive guide to one of the most consequential transfers of power in American history. Written for political insiders, this scoop-filled newsletter is breaking big news and analyzing the appointments, people and emerging power centers of the new administration. Track the transition and the first 100 days of the incoming administration. Subscribe today. | | | | | GOOD MORNING, IT'S WEDNESDAY! I'm your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. Sergio Espinosa of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers gets the trivia win for correctly identifying former President Woodrow Wilson, who is buried at the Washington National Cathedral, as the only president buried in D.C. For today: Throughout its history, the U.S. Congress has met in how many cities? Send your tips and trivia answers to ktamborrino@politico.com. 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: An energy compromise ready to ride. | | | OPENING UP THE CABINET: Joe Biden is signaling how his administration will tackle climate change with an expected series of high-profile Cabinet and White House appointments. The president-elect is expected to name former two-term Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to head the Energy Department and former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy for his domestic climate policy chief. | 
Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019. | Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch | As POLITICO's Zack Colman and Tyler Pager scoop, Granholm is experienced in dealing with the auto industry, which could give her a big advantage as Biden seeks to speed the rollout of electric vehicles and the network of charging stations needed to power them. Her ardent support of the auto industry may also help Biden's team strengthen its appeal to blue-collar workers and the manufacturing sector as the incoming administration pitches its climate-centric economic transformation. "[T]he private sector needs greater support and political will from our policymakers to help us fully realize the potential of a zero-carbon future," Granholm wrote in a November op-ed in The Detroit News. "The economics are clear: The time for a low-carbon recovery is now." If confirmed, Granholm would be only the second woman to lead the Energy Department. — McCarthy returns to Washington: Biden will also name McCarthy as his domestic climate policy chief, installing one of the architects of Barack Obama's climate regulatory efforts at the helm of his strategy to put the country on a path to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, POLITICO's Alex Guillén and Tyler Pager report. | 
Gina McCarthy, NRDC president and chief executive officer, speaks at a panel on Jan. 25, 2020 in Park City, Utah. | Photo by Kim Raff/Getty Images for NRDC | McCarthy, who will lead a new White House office of domestic climate policy, served as EPA's air chief in Obama's first term and as EPA administrator in his second. The new position does not need approval from Congress, but Alex and Tyler note, if Republicans keep control of the Senate, McCarthy will find a similar dilemma to her years leading EPA, when the Obama administration was forced to rely on executive and agency actions rather than legislation to enact its agenda. That means that, as McCarthy did under Obama , the Biden administration will have to find ways to use existing statutes to advance its climate agenda. As the White House's domestic climate policy chief, however, McCarthy will have a broader mandate to advance climate action across the government than just via new interpretations of the Clean Air Act. — Ali Zaidi, who is New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's deputy secretary for energy and environment, is expected to serve as McCarthy's deputy in the new office. He previously worked in climate-focused roles with the Office of Management and Budget and White House Domestic Policy Council during the Obama administration and is also an adjunct professor at Stanford University. | | | FROM RHODES TO ROADS: Biden also announced Tuesday he will nominate former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg to be Transportation secretary, POLITICO's Tyler Pager and Sam Mintz report . If confirmed, Buttigieg would take responsibility for nearly 55,000 employees, an $87 billion budget and more than a dozen administrations, overseeing the nation's airspace, highway system, pipeline safety and much more — placing him in a key role in the administration's quest for a clean energy economy and net-zero emissions no later than 2050. Transportation is the largest-emitting sector in the U.S. "Jobs, infrastructure, equity, and climate all come together at the DOT, the site of some of our most ambitious plans to build back better," Biden said in a statement. "I trust Mayor Pete to lead this work with focus, decency, and a bold vision — he will bring people together to get big things done." Recall: Buttigieg was one of the first presidential primary candidates in the 2020 cycle to put out an infrastructure plan, a detailed proposal that would have put $1 trillion into updating U.S. infrastructure with an eye toward fending off the effects of climate change. That plan in part called for repairing flood protection systems for communities by 2030 and increasing clean energy deployment to create a zero emissions electricity system by 2035. Related: New research from Princeton University released Tuesday laid out what specific changes the U.S. needs to take to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, including at least $2.5 trillion in additional capital investment into energy supply, industry, buildings and vehicles over the next decade. The report also calls for about 50 million electric light-duty vehicles on the road and installing 3 million public charging ports nationwide by 2030. REPORT: PELOSI, HOYER URGE AGAINST HAALAND: New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland has emerged as a top choice to lead the Interior Department, but Bloomberg reports House leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, have warned the transition team against picking another lawmaker for a Cabinet post. NICHOLS TOUTS CIVIL RIGHTS WORK: The California air regulator sought to burnish her civil rights credentials as her grip on Biden's EPA appointment has slipped amid criticism from the left, POLITICO's Alex Guillén and Debra Kahn report . As part of a career retrospective ahead of her Dec. 31 retirement from the California Air Resources Board, moderators during a virtual event Tuesday hosted by the California electric vehicle nonprofit Veloz displayed a picture of Nichols participating in the 1963 civil rights march in D.C., and she recounted her work registering Black voters in Tennessee's Fayette County while she was a student at Cornell University in her native Ithaca, N.Y. "To have been a part of that was one of the great events of my life," she said. The Biden transition team has been swayed in the past week by pressure from environmental groups to find someone with a more extensive track record on racial justice issues to head EPA, along with growing criticisms about a lack of diversity among his Cabinet picks so far. North Carolina environmental regulator Michael Regan, who is African American, has gained traction amid those concerns. LAWMAKERS FOR NICHOLS: Two Latino state officials on Monday endorsed Nichols for EPA administrator, Debra also writes. Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, a former state senator, and Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) wrote to Biden's incoming chief of staff, Ron Klain, saying "there is no environmental leader in the country more prepared than Mary Nichols to hit the ground running at EPA, nor more likely to receive Senate confirmation. "[I]t has been our experience that Mary recognizes that climate change and racial and economic justice are inextricably linked," they wrote. "Mary has advanced programs to address environmental justice concerns, protect public health in front-line communities, and deliver benefits directly to disadvantaged communities." | | | DOE ALLOWS ALL THE SHOWER HEADS: The Energy Department today published a final rule in the Federal Register that will allow shower head manufacturers to meet efficiency requirements even if they include multiple shower heads in a single unit. The move was pushed by President Donald Trump, who publicly complained about low-pressure showers. Efficiency advocates excoriated the rule . "It's ridiculous for the Department of Energy to call these 'quality of life' improvements when they'll actually harm America's quality of life by needlessly increasing consumer water and energy bills and climate-warming carbon pollution while exacerbating water shortages," said Noah Horowitz, director of the Center for Energy Efficiency Standards at the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a statement. Low-efficiency dryers and washers, too: DOE also will publish a final rule that creates a separate class of washers and dryers that have faster cycles and use more water and power. DOE advocated for the separate grouping to allow consumer choice, but efficiency advocates point out that high-efficiency washers and dryers typically come with fast cycle options when a speedy wash is needed. FED JOINS CLIMATE RISK GROUP: The Federal Reserve formally joined the Network for Greening the Financial System, making it the first federal agency to join the international group of central banks and financial regulators developing rules to address climate risks, Pro's Zachary Warmbrodt reports. The move also signals an escalation in the Fed's work to address potential climate risks in the financial system. FOR YOUR RADAR: The Securities and Exchange Commission will meet this morning to weigh the adoption of rules requiring oil, gas and mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments. As The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week : The latest version of the rule "takes a more industry-friendly approach than previous iterations. But the agency's efforts to ease the compliance burden on companies has drawn criticism from anticorruption advocates, who have accused it of rushing a vote in the final weeks of the Trump administration." Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren urged SEC Chair Jay Clayton on Tuesday to delay today's vote until the rule can be strengthened. "The current SEC proposal would severely undermine the anti-corruption measures included in Dodd-Frank, and the Commission should conduct a full and complete analysis of the potential harm caused by implementing this rule before rushing to finalize it before you resign from the Commission at the end of the year," she wrote. The proposal, Warren argued, allows broad aggregation of payments and includes exemptions to public disclosure. | | | MEMO URGES BIDEN TO INCLUDE GAS IN 2035 TARGET: The incoming Biden administration and lawmakers on the Hill should both regulate methane reductions and increase incentives for carbon capture so that natural gas can continue to play a role in long-term decarbonization, argues a memo released this morning by the left-of-center Progressive Policy Institute . To achieve Biden's net-zero electricity emissions goal by 2035, the report says, the U.S. should use natural gas as a backstop for the rapid deployment of renewable energy on the grid. Federal policy should also encourage the natural gas sector to make consistent progress toward zero-carbon emissions, which will require heavy investments in CCS and the enforcement of ambitious goals for reducing methane emissions. "Biden needs to create an economic path for natural gas that also helps his emissions goals," Paul Bledsoe, a strategic adviser at PPI and former Clinton White House aide, said in an email to ME. "Methane regs and CCS can get him there." SUNRISE STAFF FORMS UNION: Workers with Sunrise Movement voted Tuesday to form a union with Communications Workers of America Local 1180 in New York. More than 95 percent of the youth-led green group's staff members voted in support, and management agreed to recognize the staff union. Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey verified the union vote Tuesday, announcing support from 79 out of 82 workers. THE STATE OF OUR ENERGY EFFICIENCY: While some energy efficiency efforts stalled this year during the pandemic, some states continued to prioritize energy efficiency as an important resource, according to this year's scorecard released by American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. The report, which looked at policies and programs adopted through July, ranked California as No. 1 in its new scorecard, citing its efforts to decarbonize buildings as "a cornerstone of its pursuit of a 100 percent clean energy future," as well as its vehicle emissions standards and appliance standards. Massachusetts ranked second on this year's scorecard, with Vermont, Rhode Island and New York rounding out the rest of the top 5. BATTERIES, BY THE NUMBERS: Lithium-ion battery pack prices were above $1,100 per kilowatt-hour in 2010. Now, they've fallen 89 percent in real terms to $137/kWh in 2020, and by 2023, average prices will be close to $100/kWh, according to the latest forecast from research company BloombergNEF. That 2023 price point should allow automakers to produce and sell mass market EVs at the same price as comparable internal combustion vehicles in some markets, according to BloombergNEF. "What's more, our analysis shows that even if prices for raw materials were to return to the highs seen in 2018, it would only delay average prices reaching $100/kWh by two years — rather than completely derailing the industry," said James Frith, BNEF's head of energy storage research and lead author of the report, in a statement. | | | | HAPPENING TUESDAY - CONFRONTING INEQUALITY IN AMERICA TOWN HALL : The pandemic-induced recession has put over 40 million Americans at risk of foreclosure and eviction and caused a steady decline in Black homeownership. What solutions need to happen to make housing more inclusive and fair? Join POLITICO for its fourth town hall in the series "Confronting Inequality in America." Our latest town hall explores "The Housing Gap" and will convene policymakers, lawmakers, advocates and mortgage industry leaders to discuss various approaches for eliminating housing inequality as we begin to recover from the Covid-19 recession. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | — Javier Gamboa is leaving the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, where he served as professional staff, and is joining the Business Roundtable as senior director for government relations. (H/t POLITICO Influence.) | | | — "New York environmental agency finalizes regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions," via POLITICO Pro. — "Trump administration takes next step toward seismic exploration this winter in Alaska's Arctic refuge," via Anchorage Daily News. — "Environmentalists ask court to block Trump's Arctic oil auction," via Bloomberg. — "Feds to delay seeking legal protection for monarch butterfly," via Associated Press. — " Meet Guzman Energy, the power company coaxing along the co-op clean energy transition," via GreenTech Media. — "Inslee proposes his latest climate-change package as part of Washington budget," via Seattle Times. THAT'S ALL FOR ME! | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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