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OVERNIGHT ENERGY: House GOP charges forward with gas-price offensive
Now that Congress is back in session, so is your nightly guide to all things energy and the environment. Enjoy...
State of play: House Republicans will move forward Tuesday on two key fronts in their war with President Obama over energy policy.
A House Energy and Commerce Committee panel is expected to approve two bills Tuesday aimed at expanding domestic oil-and-gas leasing and ensuring that federal environmental regulations don’t raise prices at the pump.
And the House Rules Committee will meet to discuss transportation funding legislation that includes a GOP-backed provision to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
The efforts are part of a House GOP campaign to hurt Obama politically going into the election by attacking his energy policy and blaming him for high gasoline prices.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Energy and Power panel will vote Tuesday on two bills that make up part of Republicans’ legislative response to pain at the pump.
The first bill, the Gasoline Regulations Act, would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from finalizing key air pollution regulations until a Cabinet-level commission analyzes the regulations’ potential impacts on gasoline prices.
Lawmakers on the panel met Monday to deliver their opening statements on the bills.
“Many factors impact the price per gallon of gasoline, including global events that are not easily controlled by Congress,” full committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said.
“But some factors are squarely within our control, and we owe it to the American people to do something about them. This includes increasing domestic oil production and cutting red tape.”
Energy experts say there is little federal policymakers can do to lower gasoline prices, as they are tethered to oil prices, which are set on world markets. Even a dramatic expansion of domestic oil-and-gas leasing would have little effect on prices, they say.
Later Tuesday, the House Rules Committee will examine GOP legislation to extend transportation funding.
The bill includes language authored by Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) that would approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil sands crude from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
The language would specifically take the final decision on the project away from the State Department and require the independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue a permit for the pipeline.
The Keystone provision sets up another clash between Obama and Republicans over Keystone. Read more about that here.
Obama rejected a key permit for the project in January. But he said the decision was based not on the merits of the pipeline, but on a GOP-backed deadline to weigh in on the project included in legislation to extend the payroll tax cut.
Though the president welcomed project developer TransCanada to reapply and later endorsed the Southern portion of the project, Republicans bashed the president for rejecting the permit, arguing he is blocking access to North American energy.
The future of the House GOP transportation extension is unclear, given the fact that Obama and Senate Democrats have opposed similar Keystone measures in the past.
NEWS BITES:
Report: Donald Trump trumps climate change on network TV
The liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America concludes in a report that network TV coverage of climate change has plummeted over the last two years — even though there's plenty to cover on the global warming beat.
“Each Network Covered Donald Trump More Than Climate Change In 2011. Every program included in our analysis devoted more airtime to Donald Trump's flirtation with a presidential run and birther antics than to climate change in 2011, with the exception of ABC World News, which gave equal time to the two topics,” their study finds.
Coverage of climate on the Sunday talking heads shows fell 90 percent between 2009 and 2011, while nightly news coverage fell 72 percent, the group concludes. Check out the whole thing here.
EPA readies ‘fracking’ rules
The Environmental Protection
Agency faces
a Tuesday deadline to finalize air pollution rules for the
oil-and-gas sector, including standards for wells developed with
hydraulic fracturing.
The rule are aimed at curbing smog-forming
and toxic emissions.
Green group blasts 'Sportsmen's Heritage Act'
The Sierra Club is lobbying against legislation slated to come up for a vote in the House Tuesday that the environmental group says will “roll-back decades of federal law that protects our public lands.”
The group sent House lawmakers a letter Monday urging a “no” vote on the bill, known as the Sportsmen’s Heritage Act of 2012.
“Despite its name, this legislation is in no way a pro-sportsmen bill and would actually do serious damage to the resources needed by sportsmen,” the letter says.
The letter continues: “As any sportsmen will tell you, protected wilderness areas are among the best places to find good hunting and fishing opportunities. This legislation, however, would fundamentally remove those protections and seriously degrade the wildlife habitat that makes them such high-quality resources.”
The Sierra Club said the bill would, among other things, change the Wilderness Act to allow “unfettered motorized use in protected areas as well as potentially allowing the permitting of new mining, oil and gas extraction, and logging.”
Hydropwer industry launches new campaign
The National Hydropower Industry is launching a new campaign to highlight the economic benefits of expanded hydropower.
The group unveiled a map Monday detailing the more than 1,900 U.S. companies that manufacture products used in hydropower facilities.
“If you look at this map, I think it’s a clear depiction of the significant value of what the hydropower industry has on our regional and U.S. economy,” NHA President Linda Church Ciocci told The Hill.
Ciocci said the group is putting pressure on Congress to extend the production tax credit for hydropower as part of a broader extension of other renewable energy tax credits. The PTC for hyrdropower expires at the end of next year.
The extension of the PTC for hydropower is essential because it takes 3 to 5 years to permit a hydropower plant, Ciocci said.
“Obviously, this is a difficult political environment, given that this is an election year,” Ciocci said.
But, she added, “We’ve had some very good responses from members on the Hill with regard to hydro. We’re hopeful.”
Global March temps coolest since ’99
Global temperatures last month were warm by historical standards but also the coolest since 1999, providing a contrast to the lower 48 U.S. states, where March was the hottest on record.
“The average global temperature for March 2012 made it the coolest March since 1999, yet the 16th warmest since record keeping began in 1880,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in its monthly analysis.
“Warmer-than-average conditions occurred across nearly all of Canada, the contiguous United States, Mexico, Europe, Argentina, Peru, and parts of northern and central Russia, India, China, and eastern Brazil. Cooler-than-average regions included Alaska, Australia, eastern and western Russia, and parts of New Zealand,” states the agency’s National Climatic Data Center.
Senate panel explores mercury pollution
A Senate Environment and Public Works Committee panel will hear from experts at a session about the environmental and public health effects of mercury pollution. Click here for more about the hearing.
EPA in late 2011 finalized first-time standards to curb mercury emissions from power plants.
House committee looks at oil’s frontiers
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will gather for a hearing titled “Tapping America’s Unconventional Oil Resources for Job Creation and Affordable Domestic Energy: Technology and Policy Pathways.”
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...
Here's a quick roundup of Monday's E2 stories:
- Exxon CEO to ‘fracking’ critics: ‘Prove it’
- US greenhouse gas emissions grow in ’10, EPA finds
- Activists to press court to halt construction of new nuke reactors
- Wyoming governor to Interior: Defer to states on gas ‘fracking’
- Romney, GOP don’t see eye to eye on Yucca Mountain
- GOP Rep. Upton says Obama policies making gas prices ‘even worse’
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