| | | | |  | | By Zack Colman | Presented by Flex Association | | 
President Joe Biden arrives in Iwakuni, Japan today. Biden traveled to Japan to attend the G-7 summit, which will take place in Hiroshima. | Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images | SHAKY PLEDGES — As President Joe Biden heads halfway across the world to G-7 talks in Hiroshima, Japan today, climate activists around the globe are worried about how ironclad his guidance on ending overseas oil and gas investment really is. At issue is a recent United States move backing an Indonesian oil refinery expansion. The U.S. Export-Import Bank last week approved $100 million in financing to renovate the Balikpapan oil refinery. The investment muddied the Biden administration’s ban on financing oil and gas projects overseas, which is caught in the middle of the administration’s climate ambitions and ensuring energy supplies for allies. The timing was auspicious. At G-7 talks, the nations present will discuss how to balance twin goals of countering Russia and China with hitting climate targets. And the U.S. isn’t the only country that’s been shaky on climate pledges. Multiple nations have tried backtracking on 2021 commitments, made at UN climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, to stomp out overseas oil and gas financing. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is openly casting about for new gas, noted Christoph Bals, policy director with environmental group Germanwatch. And Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida recently encouraged investment in Mozambique gas production. With the Ex-Im investment, though, environmental campaigners claim the U.S. has taken steps in direct contradiction of the 2021 pledge to stop oil and gas funding overseas. For its part, Ex-Im told POLITICO it’s an independent agency and that its charter forbids discriminating against technologies. It claimed the project would yield cleaner fuels. Ex-Im’s decision has Biden’s environmental allies wondering what the ban is even worth. Many have also long warned it includes mysterious exemptions that enable oil and gas investment. “It shows the lack of transparency and oversight that’s happening with the commitment,” said Kate DeAngelis, international finance program manager with environmental group Friends of the Earth. “I think that’s purposeful to keep it out of the public eye so that the administration on the one hand can say they are leaders on the climate crisis and then on the other hand are allowing these projects to go forward.” To date, it’s not clear whether the administration has ever used carve-outs for national security and economic development to approve fossil fuel projects. There’s no template or checklist for satisfying the thresholds. Biden officials say the administration assesses proposals individually. The opacity also irked industry groups like the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which have pressured governments to boost public finance for gas infrastructure. Yet the Indonesia decision hints Biden’s gas freeze is thawing, said Fred Hutchison, president of gas industry group LNG Allies. He said it’s the clearest signal in “a lot of evidence” that there’s been a “substantial change in demeanor, in policy, in personnel” that reflects growing emphasis on countering rivals and ensuring energy supplies for friends. The ban looks like less of a blanket statement than it did pre-Russia invasion of Ukraine, he said. “This is the first instance where I’ve seen them really break out from the mold of where they’ve been, which is to be pretty skeptical of oil and gas projects,” Hutchison said. “So this is a new development.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at zcolman@politico.com or on Twitter at @zcolman.
| | | | A message from Flex Association: App-based work strengthens the economy. Consumers count on the convenience. It gives small businesses a big boost. And it gives millions of people a chance to earn income on their own terms. Now’s not the time to undermine the economy by tying up app-based work in red tape. Learn more here. | | | | | — McCarthy sounding most optimistic he’s been about a debt deal: Speaker Kevin McCarthy today sounded more optimistic than he has in months about finalizing a debt ceiling deal in time to ward off default. Ideally, White House and congressional negotiators can finalize an agreement in the coming days, with a vote on the House floor next week, McCarthy said. But that timeline is likely still very ambitious, since both sides remain divided on a number of issues, including work requirements for federal benefits and potential spending cuts demanded by House Republicans. “We’re not there, we haven’t agreed to anything yet,” McCarthy told reporters this morning. “I see the path that we can come to an agreement.” — Controversial judicial pick asks Biden to withdraw after failing to win Dem support: Appellate court nominee Michael Delaney asked President Joe Biden to withdraw his nomination today, a rare failure of a judicial nominee with Democrats controlling the Senate and White House. Several Democrats on the Judiciary Committee were resisting supporting Delaney to serve on the First Circuit Court of Appeals, in part because of his past work defending a school in a civil lawsuit over sexual assault. While it had become evident in recent weeks that Delaney did not have strong support to win confirmation, New Hampshire Democratic Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen continued pushing for his confirmation. — Twitter, Google win big at Supreme Court: The Supreme Court has passed up a closely watched opportunity to clarify the scope of the federal liability shield known as Section 230 that protects internet companies from most legal claims over content posted by users. In a pair of rulings this morning, the justices rejected lawsuits seeking to hold tech giants like Google and Twitter liable for terrorism-promoting content on their platforms. And the court nixed the suits without issuing any sweeping pronouncements on the immunity provision that has come under increasing fire from Republicans and Democrats.
| | | | GET READY FOR GLOBAL TECH DAY: Join POLITICO Live as we launch our first Global Tech Day alongside London Tech Week on Thursday, June 15. Register now for continuing updates and to be a part of this momentous and program-packed day! From the blockchain, to AI, and autonomous vehicles, technology is changing how power is exercised around the world, so who will write the rules? REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | | ANXIOUS ALLIANCE — Top anti-abortion leaders are continuing to lobby Donald Trump on a 15-week ban they believe should be the standard for the Republican Party, report POLITICO’s Meredith McGraw and Natalie Allison. Their efforts come even as Trump has not only refused to embrace a ban, but has framed some abortion legislation as electorally toxic. And it is being driven by a desire to avoid the politically uncomfortable spectacle of having to rebuke the man who not only delivered their movement its greatest win, but is likely to be the GOP’s presidential nominee. The former president has, so far, taken credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade while declining to tie himself to any specific prospective future abortion policy — save one that includes exemptions for victims of rape and incest and cases where the health of the mother is at stake. And while leaders of the movement are continuing their push to get him behind federal legislation, some are acknowledging it might not happen this cycle. “I think we’re likely to land at a message somewhere along the lines of: ‘While we support federal legislation, unapologetically, the reality is, most of the action in the near term will take place at the state level,’ as well as defunding Planned Parenthood, and a comprehensive ban on taxpayer funding, all of which will build momentum for federal legislation, and pivoting to the fact that Democrats are the real extremists,” said Ralph Reed, a longtime Christian conservative activist and chairman of Faith and Freedom Coalition, which supports the 15-week abortion ban. FIRST-IN-THE-NATION HEADACHE — Top Democrats are scrambling for ways to avoid a catastrophe in New Hampshire in which Joe Biden may not appear on the primary ballot, ceding the first unofficial contest of 2024 to a fringe candidate, report POLITICO’s Holly Otterbein and Lisa Kashinsky. The bizarre predicament is one of the president’s own making, after he pushed for changes to the party’s presidential nominating calendar that stripped the Granite State of its first-in-the-nation primary. Now, national Democrats are searching for an off-ramp. With a June deadline looming for New Hampshire to make progress on changing its law or get kicked out of the official early voting lineup, Democratic National Committee members are privately considering giving the state more time. STAFFING UP — Vivek Ramaswamy, the longshot presidential candidate, is getting some high-octane political help from a longtime veteran of New Hampshire politics and nine presidential campaigns, reports POLITICO’s Adam Wren. Michael Biundo, a former senior adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Rick Santorum’s 2012 presidential campaign manager, will be a senior adviser to the American Exceptionalism PAC backing the wealthy 37-year-old biotech entrepreneur.
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Then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson with French President Emmanuel Macron in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021. | Christopher Furlong/Getty Images | LICKSPITTLE LEADERSHIP — A furious Boris Johnson once privately described French President Emmanuel Macron as “Putin’s lickspittle” and promised to “punch his lights out,” a key aide to the former U.K. prime minister claimed, writes Andrew McDonald. Detailing his experience of Johnson’s chaotic premiership in a new podcast, former Downing Street director of communications Guto Harri said Johnson launched into a tirade about Macron in the months following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — and after the French president criticized the U.K.’s response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis. “At our morning meeting, I think with a small gang of us, he just launched into a violent attack on Emmanuel Macron,” Harri said. “Basically, saying ‘He’s a four-letter word that begins with C, he’s a weirdo, he’s Putin’s lickspittle.’” NOT WELCOME HERE — The leader of Turkey’s opposition has pledged to repatriate millions of refugees to their home countries, toughening his rhetoric ahead of a hotly contested runoff election next week, writes Gabriel Gavin. In a speech today, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu claimed that his rival, longtime President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has “deliberately allowed 10 million refugees into Turkey,” saying the incumbent has put “Turkish citizenship on sale to get imported votes.” “I am announcing here: I will send all refugees back home once I am elected as president, period,” he declared, according to Turkish media. Turkey is home to the largest number of refugees anywhere in the world, hosting an estimated four million displaced people, many from Syria and other Arab countries.
| | | | DON’T MISS POLITICO’S HEALTH CARE SUMMIT: The Covid-19 pandemic helped spur innovation in health care, from the wide adoption of telemedicine, health apps and online pharmacies to mRNA vaccines. But what will the next health care innovations look like? Join POLITICO on Wednesday June 7 for our Health Care Summit to explore how tech and innovation are transforming care and the challenges ahead for access and delivery in the United States. REGISTER NOW. | | | | | | | | | | 65 percent The percentage of voters under 30 who voted for Democrats in the 2022 midterms, up from 62 percent in 2020, according to new modeling from the Democratic data firm Catalist. Combined with 2018, it’s the first time Democrats have exceeded 60 percent among young voters in two consecutive midterms. Americans under 30 made up 10 percent of all voters, down slightly from 12 percent in 2018. | | | | ROLL OF THE DICE — As legal sports gambling sweeps across the United States, it promises significant economic upside — but also an easier path towards addiction that’s inherent within all types of gambling. Across the northern border in Canada, a longtime public bus driver in Ottawa named Noah Vineberg explains some of the risks with his own story in the magazine Maclean’s: his gambling problem began when he was 10 years old, and spiraled out of control to the point that despite having a meager salary, he’s gambled away more than $1 million. Read the engaging memoir account here.
| | |  On this date in 1977: Menachem Begin, center, speaks to supporters at his party headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel, as they celebrate the Likud Bloc's election to government after 29 years of Israeli Labor Party rule. Begin, who would become the sixth prime minister of Israel, signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, for which he and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Peace Prize. | AP Photo | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.
| | | | A message from Flex Association: App-based work strengthens the economy. Consumers count on the convenience. It gives small businesses a big boost. And it gives millions of people a chance to earn income on their own terms. Now’s not the time to undermine the economy by tying up app-based work in red tape. Learn more here. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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