News: Josh Shapiro's power play

Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Josh Shapiro's power play

May 14, 2024

Presented by

.With help from Zachary Warmbrodt and Allison Prang

THE BIG IDEA

Gov. Josh Shapiro speaks at a campaign event for President Joe Biden.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is trying to smile through the charged energy politics of his state. | Matt Rourke/AP

ENERGY TIGHTROPE — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s path to shaping clean energy policy for his fossil fuel-reliant state has parallels with President Joe Biden’s struggles to sell his climate agenda — and potential lessons for fellow Democrats.

Shapiro has proposed creating a stand-alone program to cap emissions from the state’s biggest polluters as an alternative to his predecessor’s plan to join a multi-state carbon market while increasing the amount of power the state generates from clean sources.

If he can get it through the legislature without alienating labor and business interests in a state that is the nation’s second-biggest natural gas producer, it could serve as a strategic template while also burnishing his status as a rising star in Democratic circles, your host reports.

While Shapiro has embraced Biden’s climate policies, touting Pennsylvania’s status as the only state to secure administration funding for two hydrogen hubs and talking up nuclear power and carbon capture, he has not been shy about breaking ranks. He criticized Biden’s pause of liquefied natural gas exports, telling POLITICO that the halt “needs to be brief.”

“It is a false choice to say we have to choose between protecting our planet and protecting our jobs,” Shapiro said in an interview. “We can have both.”

Shapiro, 50, is clearly an ambitious politician, but he doesn’t comment on talk of higher ambitions. Others in his orbit aren’t so shy.

“Josh has wanted to be president since middle school,” said David N. Taylor, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, who first met Shapiro when he was a state lawmaker more than a decade ago. “He’s relentlessly ambitious. The moves that he has made have been tactical all the way along. And quite frankly, who’s to stop him? He’s very very good as a politician.”

Shapiro, who casts himself as a deal-making negotiator who can foster good relations across the spectrum, will need to employ those skills to navigate his energy plan through the country’s only divided legislature amid outside pressure from the state’s powerful natural gas industry as well as labor and environmental groups.

He faces key opposition from both sides of the aisle in Harrisburg, with top Republicans balking at his plan for capping emissions and some Democrats urging him to continue his predecessor’s effort to have Pennsylvania join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Shapiro will have to thread the needle in a fiercely competitive state in the 2024 presidential contest.

“As much as we talk about the blue-green alliance, labor is frankly climate agnostic,” said state Rep. Greg Vitali, the Democratic chair of the House environmental committee. “They just want to build stuff, be it natural gas pipelines or coal plants or wind turbines. So there's this conflict between good environmental policy and keeping labor happy. Elected Democrats tend to view labor as more important to their political ambitions than environmental groups.”

EXTREMES

BANK SHOT — Citigroup Chief Legal Officer Brent McIntosh. McIntosh, a former undersecretary for international affairs in the Trump administration’s Treasury Department, spoke with our colleague Zach Warmbrodt on the sidelines of last week’s Milken conference in Beverly Hills, California.

Here’s an excerpt of their conversation:

There's a trend toward the politicization of banking, whether it's the left or the right, including on ESG issues. What is it like navigating that while also having sustainability goals?

Those issues are a challenge for banks to navigate in part because often the actors who are criticizing us are motivated to criticize us for political reasons and not merely merit-based reasons. And so we're often criticized for things we're in fact not doing. Both sides will criticize us, and the critiques will often be pulling in opposite directions, and they can't both be true, and usually neither is true.

For example, on climate, we're committed to making a steady and thoughtful and responsible transition but we get critiques from both sides. We get claims that we're boycotting traditional energy producers and we get claims that we're not making any progress on the transition. It's a difficult situation to be attacked from both sides and neither side is in fact accurate.

Does it change how you talk about it?

We just try to be factual about what we're doing and we do try to engage with the various outside actors on both sides to explain exactly what it is that we're doing and what we're not doing. Where we see critiques of us that are not consistent with the facts, we will explain in fact what we're doing and hope that the actual situation prevails.

AROUND THE NATION

REPUBLICAN RIFT — Two of Oklahoma’s top Republicans are feuding in the wake of a court ruling that bars the state from enforcing a law to keep public entities from doing business with financial firms accused of boycotting fossil fuels.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond last week fired the lawyer defending state Treasurer Todd Russ in a lawsuit challenging the 2022 measure that Russ had been responsible for enforcing. Drummond also removed Russ's decision-making authority in the case.

Russ said a statement that he had asked Drummond to represent him and chose his own outside counsel after being rebuffed. He also questioned whether his decision-making authority in the suit can be revoked.

Gov. Kevin Stitt, also a Republican, defended Russ in a news conference last week, saying the state won’t let companies attack the oil and gas industry.

“We certainly support the treasurer in that effort and we think the bill speaks for itself,” Stitt said.

CASHING IN — Gov. Gavin Newsom has agreed to provide full funding for implementation of California’s nation-leading corporate climate disclosure laws.

Newsom made the announcement as part of the state’s revised budget, which originally did not include funding for the state Air Resources Board to write the rules necessary to implement the laws when Newsom made his original budget proposal in January, our colleagues reported. Large companies operating in the state will need to start disclosing their greenhouse gas emissions in 2026.

A message from BlueTriton:

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AROUND THE WORLD

MESSY MATH — The U.K. exceeded its emissions reduction goals in the past five years, thanks in large part to a pandemic. Now, the government is considering using those gains as an excuse to slack off a little in the years ahead.

U.K. officials at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero are considering “carrying forward” those surplus emissions for the next five years, Abby Wallace reports. The accounting maneuver would essentially allow the country to pollute more without breaching its own rules.

“Cashing in ‘phantom credits’ wouldn’t change our international commitments,” said Dustin Benton, policy director at the Green Alliance think tank. “It just means we’d need to double the rate at which we cut emissions later this decade, making the job much harder.”

Asked about the situation, former Climate Minister Graham Stuart did not deny that his old colleagues were mulling plans to carry over emissions. Stuart only said that he did not want to “reveal a decision [that] hasn’t been made yet.”

DATA DIVE

SURVEY SAYS — Nearly two-thirds of Gen Z-ers and millennials are willing to pay more for environmentally sustainable products or services, according to a new global survey from Deloitte.

Six in 10 respondents in those age groups reported feeling worried or anxious about climate change in the last month, up two points from a year ago, Deloitte reported based on its online survey of nearly 23,000 people from 44 countries. About 75 percent of those responding said they take action to minimize their environmental impact, and about 80 percent said they believe that businesses could and should do more to promote sustainable purchasing decisions.

About half say their colleagues are putting pressure on their employers to take climate action, a trend that has steadily increased since 2022 — with 20 percent reporting that they have already left a job over concerns about its environmental impact.

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YOU TELL US

GAME ON — Welcome to the Long Game, where we tell you about the latest on efforts to shape our future. Join us every Tuesday as we keep you in the loop on the world of sustainability.

Team Sustainability is editor Greg Mott and reporters Jordan Wolman and Allison Prang. Reach us all at gmott@politico.com, jwolman@politico.com and aprang@politico.com.

WHAT WE'RE CLICKING

— The Washington Post takes a look at the growing trend of local opposition to carbon sequestration projects.

— Here's a sustainability concern that we weren't expecting: The Wall Street Journal reports on the potential consequences of not producing enough babies.

— The biggest U.S. public pension fund is considering opposing the reelection of Exxon's CEO to the company's board, the Financial Times reports.

A message from BlueTriton:

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Adding a water symbol to MyPlate spotlights the importance of drinking water in this easy-to-use and trusted source of nutrition information. Its inclusion can help kids consider healthy beverage options, which can positively affect their overall well-being.

The American Academy of Pediatrics states that being well hydrated helps to improve mood, memory, and attention in children. Water supports healthy joints, bones, and teeth, helps the blood circulate, and can help kids maintain a healthy weight into adulthood.

BlueTriton is pursuing a healthier, more hydrated and sustainable future for everyone by building a better water company — one that is focused on water stewardship, strengthening circular packaging, and advocating on issues that matter to a healthy world.