| | | | | |  | | By Kelsey Tamborrino | Presented by Chevron | With help from 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. | | | | | | | — Energy efficiency progress is expected to remain slow this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the International Energy Agency said this morning. — The House GOP Steering Committee selected Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington for ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas for the top spot on the Natural Resources Committee. — EPA green-lighted a controversial Mississippi flood control project, in a surprise overturn of a Bush-era veto. | | A message from Chevron: It's only human to want to build a better future for all. Chevron is working together with women and minority owned businesses, spending $4 billion since 2014. Because valuable ideas only come when you value everyone. Learn more. | | | GOOD MORNING! IT'S THURSDAY. I'm your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. Congrats to Michael Platner of Van Ness Feldman LLP for another trivia win. Russell Train was the second permanent EPA administrator after William Ruckelshaus. For today: Who was the first woman elected to party leadership in Congress? 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: EPA turns 50. What's its future? And listen to the newest episode of POLITICO's Global Translations podcast, where hosts Luiza Savage and Ryan Heath look at cobalt and how supply challenges could impact tech and the green energy transition. | | | ENERGY INEFFICIENT: Countries are expected to post slow progress on energy efficiency across the globe this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the International Energy Agency's latest energy efficiency report released this morning. "As a result of the crisis and continuing low energy prices, energy intensity is expected to improve by only 0.8% in 2020, roughly half the rates, corrected for weather, for 2019 (1.6%) and 2018 (1.5%)," the report said — well below the level needed to achieve global climate and sustainability goals. "Together with renewables, energy efficiency is one of the mainstays of global efforts to reach energy and climate goals. While our recent analysis shows encouraging momentum for renewables, I'm very concerned that improvements in global energy efficiency are now at their slowest rate in a decade," said Fatih Birol, the executive director of the IEA, in a statement. Investments in new energy-efficient buildings, equipment and vehicles are also expected to decline this year, mostly because of declines in economic growth and income uncertainty among consumers and businesses. Sales of new cars are expected to drop more than 10 percent from 2019, in turn keeping the overall vehicle fleet older and less efficient, the report said, although the share of electric vehicles in new car sales is expected to grow to 3.2 percent, up from 2.5 percent last year. 'THE STATE OF THE PLANET IS BROKEN': U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called on world leaders to use the next year, and coronavirus recovery efforts, to address "our planetary emergency" and move toward carbon neutrality. "To put it simply, the state of the planet is broken," Guterres said during a speech at Columbia University on Wednesday. "Dear friends, humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal. Nature always strikes back, and it is already doing so with growing force and fury." Guterres pointed to a collapse in biodiversity, mounting plastic waste, the acidification of the oceans and bleaching of coral reefs, as well as deaths around the globe from air and water pollution. In order to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels , the world needs to in part decrease fossil fuel production by at least 6 percent early next year through 2030, he said. "Instead, we're going in the opposite direction," Guterres added. — Guterres' remarks coincided with a World Meteorological Organization report Wednesday that said average global temperatures this year are set to be 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This year is on track to be one of the three warmest, the report found, and this decade will be the warmest on record. "There is at least a one-in-five chance of it temporarily exceeding 1.5 [degrees Celsius] by 2024," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas in a statement. | | | | TUNE IN TO OUR GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS PODCAST: The world has long been beset by big problems that defy political boundaries, and these issues have exploded in 2020 amid a global pandemic. Global Translations podcast, presented by Citi, unpacks the roadblocks to smart policy decisions and examines the long-term costs of the short-term thinking that drives many political and business decisions. Subscribe for Season Two, available now. | | | | | | | | MEET THE RANKING MEMBERS: House Republicans backed McMorris Rodgers and Westerman to lead the party on the House Energy and Commerce and Natural Resources committees, respectively, Pro's Anthony Adragna reports. McMorris Rodgers beat Reps. Michael Burgess of Texas and Bob Latta of Ohio to win the position, a spokesperson for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy confirmed, making her the first woman to hold a leadership role at the E&C panel. | 
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) speaks during a House Energy and Commerce Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee hearing on April 2, 2019. | Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images | McMorris Rodgers has championed hydropower, which accounts for more than two-thirds of all electricity generation in her home state, and called for free-market innovation to address climate change. Westerman prevailed over Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, according to the spokesperson. A Yale-educated forester, he worked closely with Republican leaders as they unveiled a moderate package of bills to combat climate change last year. Westerman crafted a bill backing the push to plant 1 trillion trees by 2050. What's next? The selections now must be ratified by the entire Republican conference later this week, a move that is typically a formality. HFC DEAL IN AN OMNI? Lobbyists are pushing to get a compromise on phasing out hydrofluorocarbons into any end-of-the-year omnibus government funding deal that passes Congress. A disagreement between Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) over the climate-change inducing chemicals torpedoed an energy policy bill last year, but the two sides struck a deal earlier in 2020. Now, lobbyists hope they can attach the phase-down language onto the must-pass legislation. "We're working very hard on this and we're not resting till the fat lady sings," said Francis Dietz, a spokesperson for the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, a trade association of coolant makers. "If there is an omnibus, we're doing everything we can to make sure we're in it." KELLY JOINS SENATE: Democrat Mark Kelly of Arizona was sworn in Wednesday as the newest member of the Senate, narrowing the GOP majority to 52-48. Kelly beat GOP Sen. Martha McSally, a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in a special election last month. | | | LUJAN GRISHAM TURNS DOWN INTERIOR: New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a co-chair of President-elect Joe Biden's transition team, turned down an offer in recent days to run the Interior Department, three sources close to the transition told POLITICO . Lujan Grisham had been seen as a leading candidate for Biden's health secretary — a role she would prefer — although Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo io now a top contender for that role. "You can't blame her for being honest about where her real passion lies," one person close to Lujan Grisham said. U.S. COMPANIES URGE BIDEN, CONGRESS ON CLIMATE: More than 40 major U.S. companies, organized by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, called on the incoming Biden administration and lawmakers on the Hill to tackle climate change through "ambitious, durable, bipartisan" policies. "To achieve a net-zero economy, the United States must establish durable national policies that harness market forces, mobilize investment and innovation, and provide the certainty needed to plan for the long term," said a joint statement from the companies. "It is also vital that our climate policies meet the needs of marginalized communities, low-income households, and workers and communities disadvantaged by the energy transition," it added. The companies include heavyweights from the technology, auto, chemicals, oil and gas, and banking industries, including Amazon, Bank of America, BP, Dow, Ford, Google, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Shell. Collectively, the companies employ nearly 5 million people and generate $3 trillion in annual revenues, according to C2ES. | | | |   | | | | | | SEC SETS $25M PENALTY OVER SCANA PROJECT: The utility company that abandoned plans to build two new nuclear power reactors in South Carolina will pay a $25 million penalty to the Securities and Exchange Commission under the terms of a deal reached on Wednesday, Pro's Alex Guillén reports. The former SCANA utility, now owned by Dominion Energy, will pay a $25 million fine for violating antifraud provisions in securities laws, as well as certain reporting requirements. The deal also requires the company to disgorge $112.5 million to ratepayers and shareholders — though that has already been satisfied by two settlements totaling over $300 million that were previously reached with those groups in other litigation. CHRISTIE TO JOIN FERC IN JANUARY: Mark Christie, who was confirmed as a FERC member on Monday, will be sworn in on Jan. 4 at the Virginia State Corporation Commission, which he currently chairs. That means he'll miss FERC's December open meeting. "There is a number of matters for the Judge to wrap up here at the SCC. So, he will continue through the end of the calendar year," VSCC spokesperson Ken Schrad told ME. Christie does not yet have his signed commission, either, so the swearing in is contingent on that, but the document can take as long as a week to make its way from the White House. WHEELER IN QUARANTINE AFTER COVID-19 EXPOSURE: EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler is quarantining after exposure to a person diagnosed with Covid-19, Alex also reports . Wheeler had contact earlier this week with a masked person who has since tested positive, an agency spokesman said. That person has been asymptomatic. "After consulting my doctor and out of an abundance of caution, I will quarantine until I've gone through the proper testing protocols," Wheeler said in a statement. He added that he "look[s] forward to carrying out agency business as usual." EPA OVERTURNS YAZOO PROJECT VETO: In a surprise move, EPA has effectively overturned a 2008 veto of the Yazoo Backwater Area Pumps project, a controversial flood control plan along the Mississippi River, the agency confirmed to Pro's Ben Lefebvre. The agency said plans for the $220 million project had changed enough from the original proposal that the George W. Bush administration's decision to reject it under the Clean Water Act no longer applied. "EPA has determined that the proposed project is not subject to EPA's 2008 Final Determination," Regional Administrator Mary Walker wrote in a Nov. 30 letter to the Army Corps of Engineers. The Bush administration nixed the plan for pumps that would divert rainwater from an already soggy part of the state into the river over concerns that it would damage as much as 67,000 acres of wetlands and wildlife habitat. Opponents of the project said the changes that the Corps is pursuing now — which include moving the project eight miles from the original proposed site and using natural gas instead of diesel to power the facility — are superficial at best and could actually threaten more environmental damage than the initial plan would have. "It's a very, very dangerous precedent to set," said Olivia Dorothy, director of Upper Mississippi River Basin operations for American Rivers. "These vetoes are supposed to be set." HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EPA: Biden marked the agency's 50th birthday on Wednesday with a rebuke of the Trump administration, promising an EPA "guided by science" and pledging to reassert its "place as the world's premier environmental protection agency that safeguards our planet, protects our lives, and strengthens our economy." He added in a statement: "We will strengthen our clean air and water protections, hold polluters accountable for their actions, and deliver environmental justice in low-income communities and communities of color across America and tribal lands." | | | | NEXT WEEK - DON'T MISS THE MILKEN INSTITUTE FUTURE OF HEALTH SUMMIT 2020: POLITICO will feature a special edition Future Pulse newsletter at the Milken Institute Future of Health Summit. The newsletter takes readers inside one of the most influential gatherings of global health industry leaders and innovators determined to confront and conquer the most significant health challenges. Covid-19 has exposed weaknesses across our health systems, particularly in the treatment of our most vulnerable communities, driving the focus of the 2020 conference on the converging crises of public health, economic insecurity, and social justice. Sign up today to receive exclusive coverage from December 7–9. | | | | | | | | — Waxman Strategies, the public affairs firm led by former Rep. Henry Waxman, added Michael Goo as a principal within the environmental practice, Johan Bergenas as vice president in the technology practice and Carl Leighty as incoming environment practice director. Leighty and Goo join from lobbying firm AJW. Goo was also previously Democratic chief counsel for energy and environment at the E&C Committee and an EPA associate administrator for policy. Bergenas previously was senior director for public policy at Vulcan. — Dan Nesvet has been appointed a presidential management fellow at the Energy Department, where he will be a congressional liaison to the Appropriations committees. He previously was a senior associate at Cornerstone Government Affairs. (H/t Playbook) — McKenzie Wilson is starting as the communications director for the progressive think tank Data for Progress. She previously was with Rep. Abby Finkenauer's congressional campaign and Sen. Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign, as well as had roles with Jamaal Bowman's congressional campaign and Washington Sen. Patty Murray's office. | | | — "Last-minute snags complicate massive spending deal," via POLITICO. — "Biden's environmental lawyers tasked with bulletproofing agenda," via Bloomberg Law. — " EPA joins conservative social network Parler," via The Hill. — "Pemex is no longer active in oil industry's key climate group," via Bloomberg. THAT'S ALL FOR ME! | | A message from Chevron: Chevron is committed to helping give thousands of entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to thrive. Learn more. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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