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OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Interior to take drilling-safety push global Thursday
Global regulators, mount up: The Interior Department is hosting a forum Thursday with top energy officials from countries around the world to discuss improving offshore drilling safety.
It follows the overhaul of U.S. offshore drilling rules in the wake of the BP oil spill that began when the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010.
The Ministerial Forum on Offshore Drilling Containment will focus on “how to strengthen containment capabilities for potential deepwater oil and gas well blowouts and on developing global solutions for offshore containment technologies," according to Interior.
The event will feature officials from many countries with offshore drilling: Angola, Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, Russia and representatives from the European Union.
There's more here.
NEWS BITES
House panel sends offshore drilling bills to the floor: The House Natural Resources Committee voted largely along party lines Wednesday to approve a trio of bills that would speed up permitting for offshore drilling projects and open up large new areas for development.
The first measure — which sets new deadlines for approval of drilling permit applications — passed the committee Wednesday morning. The remaining two bills cleared the panel in the evening.
Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), who sponsored the bills, said they will foster a safe increase in U.S. energy production. But Interior Secretary Ken Salazar argues that House Republicans have "amnesia" about last year’s catastrophic BP oil spill.
A spokeswoman for Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) tells E2 that the measures should be on the House floor next month.
"I hope the full House will soon consider these bills to unlock our energy resources in order to lower energy costs, create good-paying jobs and strengthen our national security," Hastings said in a statement after all three passed. The bills drew support from Democrats Jim Costa (D-Calif.) and Dan Boren (D-Okla.), but other Democrats on the panel cast the legislation as a reckless rush to drill that will do nothing to lower energy costs.
Bravery in Japan’s evacuation zone: CNN chronicles volunteers’ efforts to rescue pets that were abandoned inside the evacuation zone around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Two paragraphs from their story:
" 'I understand the nuclear danger and everything, but they're just being left to starve to death, basically,' said Isabella Gallaon-Aoki of Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support."
"Gallaon-Aoki and others like her have been slipping into the 20-km radius around Fukushima Daiichi to retrieve pets and feed livestock left behind when their owners were forced to evacuate. Pet owners have sent her group their addresses, accompanied by pleas to rescue their animals, left behind when they fled for what was supposed to be a short time."
Grading the ‘clean energy standard’: The respected
environmental think tank Resources for the Future answered the call
when the leaders of the Senate Energy Committee asked for input on a “clean energy standard.”
That’s
the White House plan to require 80 percent of U.S. electricity to come
from low- or no-carbon sources like renewables, nuclear, natural gas
and others by 2035.
Some highlights from RFF's response:
“Between
2013 and 2035, a CES would achieve cumulative CO2 emissions reductions
of roughly 30 percent, or 20 billion tons, relative to a baseline. This
is 41 percent of the needed CO2 reductions to meet the U.S. pledge as
part of the United Nations Climate Change Conferences in Copenhagen and
Cancun.”
Some coal- and gas-fired power plants would be put out to pasture, the think tank concludes. A bit more from RFF:
“Nuclear
capacity expansion is the economically preferred approach to meeting
the 2035 standard with or without existing nuclear and hydro crediting.
If new nuclear deployment is constrained, coal gasification plants with
carbon capture and sequestration take up the slack. When all of these
are constrained, wind becomes the preferred approach.”
THURSDAY’S ENERGY AGENDA
Here are a few of the notable events around town ...
House, Senate likely to approve CR that cuts EPA funding, blocks ‘wild lands’: Votes are expected in both chambers on the continuing resolution to fund the government through September.
The spending deal struck last week includes a deep cut in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget, and a provision that prohibits funding for the Interior Department’s “wild lands” program, designed to conserve public lands that Congress hasn’t official deemed wilderness.
Check out our story here.
House Energy Committee to review coal-waste bill: The House Energy and Commerce Committee is continuing its assault on what Republicans call on overly zealous EPA regulatory agenda.
An Environment and Economy subcommittee hearing will dissect legislation to prevent tough federal rules governing disposal of a waste product from coal-fired power plants.
Check out our story on the proposed rules governing “coal ash” and the bill to block them here. Witnesses at the hearing include EPA’s top solid-waste official, state regulators and others.
Forum to probe the future of nuclear power: The National Press Club’s Newsmaker program will host several experts to discuss what’s next for nuclear power amid the Japanese reactor crisis. The event features former Rep. Phil Sharp (D-Ind.), Jim Riccio of Greenpeace and analyst Kevin Book of Clearview Energy Partners.
Energy Department to tout cutting-edge research: Arun Majumdar, the head of the department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, will join with power industry officials to make a clean-energy research announcement. “Dr. Majumdar will discuss how ARPA-E projects are helping spur innovation to grow the economy, promote energy-saving choices for consumers, and win the future,” an advisory states.
ARPA-E is a program that funds so-called high-risk, high-reward projects to spur “breakthrough” technologies. The White House is pushing for increases in clean-energy R&D.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Here’s a quick roundup of Wednesday’s E2-Wire coverage:
— The Boston Globe is attacking Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-Mass.) vote against climate change rules
— Shell Oil is backing House GOP efforts to speed up permitting for Arctic drilling projects
— BP’s partnership with Russia’s Rosneft appears to be collapsing
— Democratic budget plans call for ending oil industry subsidies
— Environmentalists are asking tough questions about Obama's green record
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