OVERNIGHT ENERGY: EPA seeks to quell climate concerns as greens fret

State of play: The Environmental Protection Agency sought to quell concerns Thursday that climate change regulations will face the same fate as an ozone rule that the White House scuttled this month.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said Wednesday that the agency would miss an end-of-September deadline to propose greenhouse gas standards for power plants, but insisted the rules are still on track.

She told San Francisco radio station KQED on Thursday that the agency will “absolutely” continue moving ahead with the standards. EPA officials say they will announce a new schedule shortly.

EPA is seeking to rebut the notion that the delay stems from White House or other influences outside the agency. Jackson told KQED that the delay was “not at all” a political decision, while spokeswoman Betsaida Alcantara told E2 that “we are very much committed to proposing the standards.”

The delay comes as greenhouse gas regulations and other EPA rules are under attack from Capitol Hill Republicans, who have called them “job killers.”

The rules were scheduled to be proposed by Sept. 30 under a legal agreement between EPA and a group of environmentalists and states that had sued the agency under former President George W. Bush, who opposed climate regulations.

Environmental groups issued a flurry of statements Thursday decrying the new delay.

“Every day we delay cleaning up our nation’s power plants fattens polluter profits and shrinks our chances of tackling the climate crisis. Today’s decision suggests that when it comes to uncontrolled carbon pollution, the administration appears content with business as usual,” said Joe Mendelson, the policy director for climate and energy programs at the National Wildlife Federation.

NEWS BITES:

Carney: 'Element of politics' to Solyndra criticism: White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday that there is an “element of politics” in Republican criticism of the Obama administration’s decision to approve a $535 million loan guarantee for a now-bankrupt solar company, Solyndra.

“I think there's always an element of politics in these things,” Carney told reporters at the White House.

Republicans have pounced on Solyndra’s bankruptcy, arguing that the Obama administration did not adequately vet the loan guarantee application for the California-based company.

Carney stressed that President Obama remains committed to investing in clean-energy technology, arguing that the United States must take decisive action in order to compete with China.

“The president is absolutely committed to the idea that the United States must compete in the cutting-edge technologies of the 21st century,” Carney said. “We have a choice to make as a nation, because we will be buying renewable energy products, you know, whether it's wind, biofuel, solar, whether alternative — rather, you know, advanced battery technology, we're going to be buying that stuff. Do we want to buy it with a stamp on it that says ‘Made in America’ or are we going to buy it from the Chinese or from other countries?”

Meanwhile, Energy Department Director of Public Affairs Dan Leistikow took to the White House blog Thursday to defend the administration's investments in clean energy.

Republicans release more Solyndra emails: Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee's investigations panel released 18 pages of White House emails on the Solyndra loan guarantee.

You can read the emails here.

Republicans on the panel released excerpts of the emails during a hearing on the Solyndra loan guarantee. The lawmakers publicly released redacted versions of several of the emails Thursday for the first time. But the committee has thousands of other documents that have not yet been released to the public.

The GOP alleges the emails show that the White House tried to rush a final decision on Solyndra’s financing so that Vice President Biden could announce approval of the loan guarantee at the September 2009 groundbreaking for the company’s new factory.

The White House has dismissed the allegations, arguing that the emails are a "scheduling matter."

Read more here.

Salazar to visit Nevada solar project: Amid all of the attention on the Solyndra bankruptcy, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is slated to visit a solar project in Nevada next Tuesday. Salazar will visit the construction site of the Silver State North Solar Project, which the Interior Department calls "the first large-scale photovoltaic solar energy project located on U.S. public land."

Interior says Salazar will "highlight the Obama administration’s efforts to create more American jobs while building a clean energy future."

The event, which was announced Thursday, is the latest indication that the Obama administration is continuing to press its clean-energy agenda despite the furor over Solyndra.

Bromwich: Permit delays loom without funding boost: Interior Department offshore drilling chief Michael Bromwich isn’t shy about attacking industry and GOP claims that his agency is dragging its feet on offshore drilling permits.

But he warned Thursday that things will indeed slow down if the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement doesn’t get the money it needs from Congress.

The Obama administration is seeking to boost funding to $358 million for offshore drilling oversight in fiscal year 2012.

“We don’t have enough drilling engineers right now to substantially step up the pace of processing permits if the pace of applications grows significantly. I am very worried about that,” Bromwich told reporters after appearing before a House panel.

“I hope Congress takes action soon to give us the additional resources that we need for various tasks, very much including permitting, otherwise I am afraid that the backlog will grow and we will be powerless to do anything about it,” he said.

Bromwich said there is a very small backlog in shallow-water permit applications and that the backlog in deepwater permitting applications is also low — somewhere in the teens.

“It’s just not a significant issue right now,” Bromwich said. “I am concerned about the future as operators continue to gain confidence that we are in fact processing their permits. I am concerned and have been concerned for months about our ability to keep up with the flow of permits.”

“That is what underscores the need for additional resources,” he said.

Interior has beefed up safety rules in the wake of the BP spill; Bromwich said in a speech Tuesday that industry must realize that permitting won’t proceed at pre-spill rates.

BOEMRE is splitting into two separate agencies Oct. 1: a Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) that will enforce safety and environmental rules and a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) that will manage resource development matters, such as leasing and environmental analysis.

DOE panel says U.S. has big gas, oil supplies: The National Petroleum Council, an advisory committee to the Energy Department, released a report Thursday on the potential of oil and natural-gas resources in North America.

Here are the report’s four main findings:

First, the potential supply of North American natural gas is far bigger than was thought even a few years ago.

Second — and perhaps surprising to many — America’s oil resources are also proving to be much larger than previously thought.

Third, we need these natural gas and oil resources even as efficiency reduces energy demand and alternatives become more economically available on a large scale.

Fourth, realizing the benefits of natural gas and oil depends on environmentally responsible development.

August the eighth warmest on record: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday that the planet had its eighth warmest August on record last month. NOAA has been keeping records since 1880.

You can read more here.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…

Here’s a quick roundup of Thursday’s E2 stories:

— EPA chief ‘respects’ Obama’s smog decision
— Johanns, Grassley call on EPA to support ban on farm dust regs
— Top Dem signals fight over GOP plan to fund FEMA with Energy cuts
— Boehner: Tie next highway bill to drilling expansion
— Nebraska football cuts TransCanada sponsorship over Keystone pipeline
— Oil industry to supercommittee: Let us do our thing
— Interior to move against BP on spill
— Obama administration doubling down on clean energy loans
— EPA climate rule schedule slips
— Dem blasts committee for considering ‘snakes on a plane’ instead of jobs

Please send tips and comments to Ben Geman, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and Andrew Restuccia, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Follow us on Twitter: @E2Wire, @AndrewRestuccia, @Ben_Geman