E2-Wire

Natural Gas Caucus Co-chairmen David Boren (D-Okla.) and Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) responded Friday to questions posed by two House colleagues concerning hydraulic fracturing, a drilling technique that has greatly increased natural gas reserves but some say poses environmental risks.

Writing to Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Reps. Boren and Murphy stressed the positive on an issue that has the potential to generate a fair amount of controversy on Capitol Hill, as they also offered a different spin on the potential hazards of groundwater contamination.

Boren and Murphy wrote Waxman and Markey that they were “heartened by your forthright embrace of this critical home grown energy resource.”

“Although we may approach this issue from different perspectives, both the tone and substance of your February 18th memo make clear that the areas in which we agree are substantial relative to the issues on which we might not,” Boren and Murphy wrote.

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The United Auto Workers is pressing Congress to oppose resolutions that would nullify EPA’s “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases threaten human health. The union has the ear of Democrats in states with a heavy auto industry presence such as Michigan and Ohio.

The endangerment finding isued late last year is a precursor to upcoming climate change rules. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) thus far has 40 cosponsors for a filibuster-proof resolution that would overturn the finding. House versions have also been introduced. Murkowski and her supporters fear the effects of EPA rules on stationary sources like power plants and factories.

But the UAW, echoing White House concerns, said in a letter to Congress Monday that the resolutions would upend a pending national auto mileage and emissions standard. This would end up “subjecting auto manufacturers to all of the burdens that the one national standard was designed to avoid,” the letter states. Automakers have also said they want the national plan to proceed.

The Solar Energy Industries Association, the industry's main Washington, D.C.-based trade group, on Monday said it has hired Thomas P. Kimbis as both its new director of policy and research and general counsel.

Kimbis spent 2005-2009 as director of market transformation for the Energy Department’s Solar Energy Technologies Program. He previously worked on legislative affairs at DoE as well.

Most recently Kimbis was executive director of the The Solar Foundation, a SEIA-affiliated group involved in educational outreach and other activities.

“Tom has been one of the most influential leaders in the U.S. solar industry for several years and SEIA is happy to welcome him to our growing team,” SEIA President Rhone Resch said in a prepared statement Monday.

John Stanton, who was SEIA’s general counsel and a top lobbyist for the group, recently left to join the company SolarCity.

The Senate trio that’s trying to craft compromise climate legislation have bowed to the political reality that a sweeping cap-and-trade bill akin to what passed the House won’t fly in the upper chamber.

Instead Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) are looking at a hybrid approach for their work-in-progress bill: Start with a cap-and-trade system for utilities, bring other industrial facilities under a cap at a later date (much later, hopes Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan), while motor fuels would be addressed through some sort of tax or fee.

But some economists are wondering whether the attempt to gain political traction is coming at the expense of what makes the most sense policy-wise.

America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA), a year-old coalition of independent natural gas producers, on Monday announced that Anadarko Petroleum Corp. CEO Jim Hackett will serve as its new chairman.

Anadarko is one of the world’s biggest independent oil-and-gas companies. ANGA – which now represents 34 companies – is an advocacy group that is pushing for a range of natural gas-friendly measures in climate and energy legislation.

“As a country, we need to fully utilize this clean-burning, abundant, domestic resource that has the potential to create jobs throughout North America, enhance energy security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and advance a cleaner, lower-carbon energy future in our communities,” Hackett said in a prepared statement Monday.

Hackett succeeds David Trice, the group’s founding chairman who is the retired CEO of Newfield Exploration Co. Hackett is the former president of Devon Energy Corp., another large producer, and has also worked for several other energy companies.

As president, George W. Bush often clashed with environmentalists, particularly over his administration’s refusal to seek binding caps on carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases.

Maybe this will help the now ex-president and Texas resident mend fences: the Bush presidential library is going to set the standard for energy efficiency.

“The center's 23-acre tract will include native plants and sophisticated conservation measures, such as a wetland and underground cisterns to catch and recycle most rainwater,” the Dallas Morning News reports. “The building, made of Texas materials over cast concrete, will get nearly 10 percent of its electricity and all of its hot water from solar energy.”

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The sequel to the bizarre “Demon Sheep” ad from Carly Fiorina’s California Senate campaign aims at Sen. Boxer’s climate advocacy. .

The strange new web video shows Boxer’s head enlarging until it breaks through the Capitol and becomes a blimp drifting across the country while the narrator attacks her on several fronts – including global warming.

Her alleged missteps include “proclaiming her cap-and-trade bill would clean the environment, indifferent that it would take already painful jobless numbers and make them dramatically worse,” the narrator states.

Congress raised the eligibility requirements for products that would qualify, which left some window manufacturers outside looking in.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday that Democratic plans to use budget reconciliation to complete heath care legislation will “poison the well” for subsequent initiatives – including the climate and energy plan he’s crafting with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.)

“If they do this, it is going to poison the well for anything else they would like to achieve this year or thereafter,” he said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”

“The way [President Obama] is governing on this health care bill, this arrogance, ignoring the American people and trying to jam through a bill that nobody likes and deal out Republicans is going to make it virtually impossible for me or anyone else,” Graham later added.

The tumultuous Copenhagen climate conference wrapped up three months ago, but the debate persists over what led to the near-collapse of the talks and the subsequent salvaging of a weak accord.

Reporting from Beijing, the Associated Press states that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao denies he boycotted a key meeting between President Obama and other heads of state that occurred shortly after Obama arrived at the talks.

Instead, AP reports, the Chinese premier argues that he’s the one who was snubbed.