⏰ Permit fight approaches

Plus: "Tipping points" near | Monday, September 12, 2022

Open in app View in browser   Presented By League of Conservation Voters   Axios Generate By Ben Geman and Andrew Freedman · Sep 12, 2022 🚀 Off we go! Today's newsletter has a Smart Brevity count of 1,063 words, 4 minutes.  🗓️ Join Andrew on Wednesday at 12:30pm ET for a virtual event exploring what the new climate law means for corporate policies. Guests include Project Drawdown's Jonathan Foley and Allbirds' Hana Kajimura. Register. 🎶 And happy birthday to the late drumming wizard and songwriter Neil Peart of Rush, which has today's intro tune...     1 big thing: A revealing fight over permitting is coming to a head Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios   Congress is nearing a showdown over legislation to speed various forms of energy projects in a battle that highlights competing visions of climate policy, Ben writes. Catch up fast: The price of Sen. Joe Manchin's vote for the climate law is pushing a separate plan that cuts permitting timelines and limits challenges. Senate Democratic leaders plan to attach the measure to must-pass legislation to continue government funding after this month. Driving the news: The bill is splitting Democrats. On Friday, 72 House Democrats came out against adding the permitting plan to the funding bill — at least if it looks anything like they fear. They said in a letter that a draft that leaked over the summer would harm low-income, Indigenous and communities of color. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a prominent progressive, blasted the plan Thursday. A number of environmental and climate groups are also opposing the side deal. The other side: The White House is supporting the plan. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it would help realize the benefits of the new climate law and the bipartisan infrastructure law. Permitting problems often delay solar and wind projects, she said at a briefing Thursday. Moves to cut permitting timelines also have support from some groups often aligned with Democrats, including the American Clean Power Association and Carbon180. Quick take: The tussle over the plan is partly about concerns over localized effects of fossil fuel infrastructure — including the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas line Manchin, the Democrat from West Virginia, is keen to advance. But it's also a collision between competing views on fossil fuels. Some environmentalists fear new infrastructure that lasts decades will lock in emissions that put Paris Agreement goals out of reach. The competing view: The energy demand side of the equation is way more important. So a deal that makes building clean energy projects and transmission easier nets out as a win for the climate. What they're saying: A Bank of America research report on the new climate law notes that inadequate transmission is a big challenge for the envisioned clean energy growth. "[T]here is hope that permitting reform talks could help streamline the review process for infrastructure projects essential to the renewable power buildout," their analysts say. What we don't know: Whether the permitting plan will pass and in what form. But a mix of GOP support and Democrats backing the deal could well shove it over the line. 👀 Speaking of permitting: The American Exploration & Production Council, an industry group, will today unveil its policy agenda for expanding U.S. LNG exports. It includes changing laws — the National Environmental Policy Act among them — to more easily build infrastructure to bring domestically produced gas to export terminals.     2. The clearest "tipping points" warning yet Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios   A new assessment of tipping points within the climate system concludes that far more stringent emissions cuts are needed, compared to the most ambitious current plans, Andrew writes. Why it matters: The new study, published Friday in Science, finds tipping points lurking much closer to the present level of warming, and that the Paris Agreement's most stringent warming target of 1.5°C compared to preindustrial levels could trigger four of them. These would include the abrupt thawing of permanently frozen soil that rings the Arctic and the die-off of warm-water coral reefs. Context: The study defines a tipping point as when changes in a large part of the climate become self-perpetuating. Not every tipping point immediately affects the planet, some are felt regionally. Some, like the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, could take centuries to fully play out. The big picture: The new study is a far more sobering read compared to a similar paper published in 2008, since it finds that we're perilously close to setting off four of them, including the abrupt thawing of permanently frozen soil that rings the Arctic. "Current policies leading to [about] 2 to 3°C warming are unsafe," the study states. What's next: The researchers put forward the idea of a tipping point early warning system, which could combine remote sensing, such as satellite measurements, with computer modeling and deep learning techniques. Read the whole story.     3. Charted: Energy inflation Reproduced from IMF; Note: Food category includes food and non-alcoholic beverages while housing and energy category includes housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels; Chart: Axios Visuals The steep rise in energy commodity costs — for both home energy needs and transport fuels — has been a key driver of wider global inflation, Ben writes. The big picture: "Policies to address specific impacts on energy and food prices should focus on those most affected without distorting prices," the International Monetary Fund said in a blog post. This year's food price increase also reflects higher energy costs. Yes, but: The energy cost woes are easing of late, including in the U.S., where gasoline prices continue to decline. Axios' Matt Phillips has more.     A message from League of Conservation Voters President Biden just delivered a huge climate victory     Now it's time to move forward with a supercharged transition to clean energy. ConocoPhillips' dirty and dangerous Willow project in America's Arctic threatens to take us backward. President Biden needs to say no to Willow and keep moving us forward. Learn more.     4. Climate's role in the White House biotech push Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios   President Biden will issue an executive order today that launches a national biotech and biomanufacturing initiative — and climate and energy security are stitched into the wider effort, officials say, Ben writes. The big picture: The order seeks to curb the effects of climate on the U.S., a senior administration official told reporters Sunday. Goals include "replacing foreign petrochemicals with locally produced bio-based chemicals, using biofuels to cut greenhouse gas emissions, developing soil microbes and crops that remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere." Go deeper: China competition spurs Biden push for domestic biotech subsidies (Washington Post)     5. The energy infrastructure tragedy Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios   The world's energy infrastructure is failing, in entirely foreseeable — and foreseen — ways, Axios' Felix Salmon writes. Why it matters: For over a decade, policy wonks urged global governments to take advantage of low-interest rates by spending trillions of dollars on making economies resilient to climate change. Now, that window of opportunity has closed, and the necessary investments will be far more expensive. State of play: Governments worldwide have consistently made short-sighted decisions about their energy infrastructure. Some examples... Germany steadily increased its reliance on Russian gas while reducing alternative sources of energy such as nuclear power — even after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. Texas built a market-based system that gave private operators no incentive to build in resilience to rare events like the winter storms of 2021. California's grid was overburdened by the kind of heat wave that is only going to become more common. India needed $1.5 trillion of energy investment between 2015 and 2040, per an International Energy Agency report in 2014; eight years later, it has yet to even get started on that kind of expansion. Read the whole story.     A message from League of Conservation Voters President Biden just delivered a huge climate victory     Now it's time to move forward with a supercharged transition to clean energy. ConocoPhillips' dirty and dangerous Willow project in America's Arctic threatens to take us backward. President Biden needs to say no to Willow and keep moving us forward. Learn more.   📬 Did a friend send you this newsletter? Welcome, please sign up. Thanks to Mickey Meece and David Nather for edits to today's newsletter. We'll see you back here tomorrow! Why stop here? Let's go Pro. Join the thousands of professionals reading Axios Pro: Climate Deals to better understand the forces shaping their industry.   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. If you're interested in advertising, learn more here. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Axios, 3100 Clarendon B‌lvd, Arlington VA 22201   You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios. Change your preferences or unsubscribe here.   Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now to get Axios in your inbox.   Follow Axios on social media: