At a House Natural Resources Committee hearing, Republicans warned of executive overreach; Democrats accused Interior of caving to industry pressure.

A bill viewed as a bellwether of the Senate’s appetite for passing energy-efficiency legislation breezed through the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday.

The bill (S.761), co-sponsored by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), passed the committee by a 19-3 vote. Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Tim Scott (S.C.) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.) opposed the measure.

But even the bipartisan endorsement for the bill might not be enough to get it to the floor. A similar version last year fell victim to a disagreement between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) regarding amendments.

Former Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), who led the House subcommittee that oversaw Environmental Protection Agency and Interior Department funding, has joined the prominent law firm and lobby shop Van Ness Feldman.

Van Ness Feldman focuses heavily on energy and natural resource clients, and Dicks will joint the firm as a senior policy counsel, working out of both Washington, D.C., and Seattle.

Dicks didn’t run for reelection last year after 36 years in Congress.

Electric utilities plan to ask President Obama to waive highway tolls for utility crews responding to extreme weather-related power outages, an industry source told The Hill.

Obama is meeting with utility chief executives and trade associations Wednesday at the White House to discuss improving response times to major weather disasters like Hurricane Sandy.

The industry source said it would ask Obama for some quick fixes — mostly on the logistics side of emergency response — to prevent a similar episode, with the toll issue being a good start.

The Washington Post’s editorial board is urging retiring Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to back carbon taxes in the wider tax code overhaul that the powerful Finance Committee chairman wants to achieve.

The Post’s new editorial calls a carbon tax “an elegant policy Congress could immediately take off the shelf.”

It’s not the first time the paper has backed the idea. But The Post’s latest push could buoy a loose collection of policy wonks and climate activists seeking any traction in their steep uphill climb in favor of carbon taxes.

E2-Wire looked at the against-the-odds push in detail here.

"There’s only dirty oil and dirtier oil,” Gore told Canada’s The Globe and Mail.

Ignacia Moreno, head of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, is stepping down after a tenure that has included defense of federal greenhouse gas rules and the ongoing civil prosecution over BP’s 2010 oil spill.

Moreno, who won Senate confirmation in November of 2009, plans to leave the Justice Department (DOJ) early in June, the DOJ announced Wednesday.

The Associated Press looks at competition between China and India for oil and other goods.

“From Africa to the Arctic, the world's two most populous countries are bumping up against each other in their search for resources and new markets,” AP reports.

Bloomberg reports on Exxon Mobil’s Gulf of Mexico plans.

The Houston Chronicle checks out technologies that enable ultra-deepwater drilling.

Reuters has the latest on the long-running legal battle over Chevron Corp.’s alleged pollution of Ecuadorean rainforest.

BuzzFeed reports on an activist’s claim that Vice President Biden admitted he opposes the Keystone XL pipeline, but is in the “minority” in the Obama administration.

The veep’s office said Biden’s views remain unchanged, and cited a 2012 statement in which Biden said the administration will make a decision after the State Department review process.

"It's going to go through the process, and it will be made on an environmentally sound basis," Biden in 2012.

President Obama will huddle with power industry officials Wednesday afternoon as hurricane season approaches.