With help from Anthony Adragna and Alex Guillén
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— Washington Gov. Jay Inslee might not be running for president anymore, but his climate proposals are still going strong in the Democratic Party.
— It's a busy day for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee: Amendments to the committee's energy bill are being ironed out, and the panel will vote on the nomination of James Danly for FERC and hear from Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette this morning.
— Among the votes taken this Super Tuesday is a proxy battle in Texas, between a progressive lawyer and conservative Democratic lawmaker.
GOOD MORNING! IT'S TUESDAY. I'm your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. Check out the POLITICO Energy podcast — all the energy and environmental politics and policy news you need to start your day, in just five minutes. Listen and subscribe for free at politico.com/energy-podcast.
Cheniere's Khary Cauthen gets the trivia win. There are 1,357 delegates up for grabs for Democrats today on Super Tuesday. For today: In what state was the first-ever National Wildlife Refuge established? Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to ktamborrino@politico.com.
Driving the Day
INSLEE'S LASTING 2020 IMPACT: It's been almost a year to the day since Inslee announced he'd run for president and would focus his campaign singularly on addressing climate change. Although the Washington governor never won traction among voters and dropped out of the race in August 2019, his campaign staffers were quick to fan out to plant the same policy ideas with a half-dozen other Democratic candidates. In fact, parts of Inslee's program are influencing the Democratic Party's climate report that House Democrats are planning to release by the end of this month, Pro's Eric Wolff reports this morning.
"Governor Inslee's vision and laser-beam focus helped make climate change, for the first time in U.S. history, a top-tier issue in a presidential campaign," said Gina McCarthy, the head of EPA under Obama and now president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Inslee's six-part climate policy proposal helped push other Democrats to take more ambitious stances on the issue, according to people who worked with the two-term governor and former congressman. Among the elements he pushed that now sit at the center of Democrats' climate policy positions are an emphasis on imposing emissions standards on specific industrial sectors rather than a reliance on macroeconomic policies like a carbon tax.
"The impact we had accelerated as we left the door," said Sam Ricketts, Inslee's former climate director and now a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress. According to Ricketts, Inslee's phone lit up after he dropped out, with calls from former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) all looking for his guidance on climate policy.
On the Hill
AMENDMENT PROCESS UNFOLDING: The Senate's bipartisan energy package, S. 2657 (116), overwhelmingly cleared a procedural hurdle Monday but the largest question mark appears to be whether the chamber will vote on an amendment containing the text of a bipartisan bill, S. 2754 (116), phasing out the use of hydrofluorocarbons. Sen. Tom Carper, top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee and the bill's co-sponsor, told reporters that lawmakers huddled during the vote and were "kicking around" adding language related to federal preemption to the bill. "We're fighting for the vote," Carper said.
Several lawmakers indicated EPW Chairman John Barrasso was objecting to an amendment vote. "Chairman Barrasso believes consumers and businesses need clear rules and regulatory certainty," a spokesman for Barrasso told ME. "He has concerns with any legislative effort that will layer new federal rules on a patchwork of current or future state rules."
Battle lines are being drawn: Sen. Brian Schatz told reporters he was one of three senators to oppose the procedural motion to insist on the HFC bill getting a vote. "We have 16 Republicans that have co-sponsored the legislation," he said. "There is simply no reason not to give it a vote." Sen. John Neely Kennedy, the other co-sponsor, added: "If we can't get it worked out, that's why God invented roll call votes. ... I'm trying to avoid a situation where if they object to mine, then I got to object to all the others to try to get leverage. That's how we all bog down."
Energy Chairman Lisa Murkowski told reporters she hoped to get an amendment process ironed out in the next day or so. "My hope is we can get to this [today] and then work out what a schedule of amendments looks like," she said. Her Democratic counterpart, Sen. Joe Manchin, said he expected amendment votes on building code language and a clean energy tax credit package, though a Democratic aide said the conference wanted to discuss the tax portion at its lunch today. "We're going to get some amendments. How many I can't tell you," Manchin said, adding he expected debate would last at least a week.
By the way: The Senate meets at 10 a.m. today to resume consideration of the energy bill.
SENATE PANEL TO HEAR FROM DOE SECRETARY, VOTE ON DANLY: The Senate Energy Committee will vote once again this morning on Danly's nomination for FERC. Danly, who is FERC's current general counsel, was previously approved by the committee 12-8 in October before his nomination lapsed at the end of the year. Senators are expected to advance Danly again along a similar margin today.
After the vote, the panel will hear from Brouillette on his department's fiscal 2021 budget request. The appearance marks Brouillette's second this year, after he testified last week before a House Appropriations subcommittee. Much like that appearance, Brouillette is likely to face questions about the administration's plans for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository — which was omitted from the president's budget request — as well as its proposed cuts to DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and eliminating the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
GANG'S ALL HERE: Five Energy Department officials will address the House Appropriations Energy-Water Subcommittee today at a hearing on the FY2021 budget requests for the department's applied energy programs: Assistant Secretary Bruce Walker, who runs the Office of Electricity; Assistant Secretary Daniel Simmons, who runs Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; Assistant Secretary Steve Winberg who runs the Office of Fossil Energy; Assistant Secretary Rita Baranwal, from the office of nuclear energy; and Alexander Gates, who is running the office responsible for cybersecurity in the wake of the departure of Karen Evans.
2020 Watch
TO THE POLLS: Fourteen states will vote today on Super Tuesday, with only a handful of Democratic presidential contenders remaining. The states that head to the polls today include energy-intensive states like Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and California, where voters will have to weigh candidates' plans to ban fracking, tax carbon emissions, and end offshore drilling, among other ideas.
According to analysis from S&P Global Platts Analytics, policies that Democratic presidential candidates are pushing — like prohibitions on federal permitting — would deter 1.6 million barrels per day of oil and 2.4 billion cubic feet per day of gas growth through 2024.
ME is also watching one Texas race in particular: Immigration lawyer Jessica Cisneros — a 26-year-old progressive, "Green New Deal" supporter — is taking on eight-term Rep. Henry Cuellar, who is one of the most conservative Democrats in the House. The race, as Pro's Ben Lefebvre and Anthony Adragna reported, has become a proxy battle between Democratic leadership and the left wing of the party, and it offers a glimpse into whether the kind of message that excites progressive activists — bans on fracking and phase-outs of fossil fuel — could resonate in Texas.
Around the Agencies
TRUMP TAPS NANCY BECK FOR CONSUMER SAFETY AGENCY: President Donald Trump last night announced he'd nominate Nancy Beck for chairwoman of the Consumer Products Safety Commission. Beck is principal deputy assistant EPA administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, was detailed to the White House's National Economic Council, and previously spent years as a top expert for the American Chemistry Council. Beck has played a critical role in the Trump administration's interpretation of Congress' 2016 overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act.
The president also sent three notable nominations to the Senate: Christopher Hanson for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Beth Harwell and Brian Noland to be members of the nine-person board of the Tennessee Valley Authority.
FOUND IN THE FOOTNOTES: The Trump administration is refusing to share documents related to changes to EPA's enforcement strategy, according to GAO. The watchdog said the agency's refusal to share documents is creating "substantial ongoing delays" in its review of the agency's enforcement work — a charge that was found in the footnote of a report issued following a 2018 request from House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), Pro's Alex Guillén reports. "We have ongoing work on changes to EPA's enforcement strategies, processes, and approaches for coordinating with states. We split our work under this request into separate reports due to substantial ongoing delays in receiving information from EPA," GAO said in its report dated Jan. 31 but released Monday. In a statement, EPA spokesperson Corry Schiermeyer said that the dispute with GAO is about protecting confidential information.
ME FIRST — EX-EPA OFFICIAL JOINS OIL, GAS GROUP: Troy Lyons, who formerly headed EPA's Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations, will join the American Exploration & Production Council, which represents independent oil and gas explorers. Lyons ran OCIR from April 2017 until last summer, when he departed the agency for the lobby shop Massie Partners, where his clients have included BP America, NRG Energy, pipeline companies and biofuels interests, among others. Prior to joining EPA, he worked as a top lobbyist for BP and Hess.
EPA: FUEL ECONOMY IMPROVES: Vehicle fuel economy increased slightly in model year 2018 vehicles and is expected to increase again in 2019 vehicles, according to EPA's annual automotive trends report. The report, released Monday, also showed that model year 2018 vehicles had a real-world fuel economy of 25.1 miles per gallon, up 0.2 mpg from 2017, Alex reports. Meanwhile, carbon dioxide emissions fell to 353 grams per mile, down 4 grams from the prior year. While an improvement, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement they "are a far cry from the unfeasible Obama Administration's standards."
Beyond the Beltway
NYISO CHIEF: FERC RULES WON'T KILL CLEAN ENERGY: The chief of the New York Independent System Operator, Rich Dewey, told POLITICO that FERC's recent mitigation decisions decried by renewable developers will not impede New York's clean energy progress in the near term, Pro's Marie J. French reports. "A lot of the initial response and reaction that we saw reported … made it seem like these orders were going to be pretty detrimental to New York, specifically to the renewable industry and the climate change efforts," Dewey said in an interview.
While renewable developers and advocates derided them as "wrongheaded" and "a new subsidy to the fossil fuel industry," the orders still allow NYISO to exempt some new subsidized renewables in the downstate region from an obscure test that could limit their revenues and make it harder to achieve the state's goal of reaching carbon free electricity by 2040. FERC also rejected an effort by fossil fuel generators to block revenues for upstate renewables and subsidized nuclear plants. "That was really a win for renewables in New York," Dewey said. "The FERC really wants … our markets to co-exist with the clean energy programs in New York and they’re going to give us a chance to make that work."
State policymakers are more alarmed. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration initially declined to comment on the orders issued Feb. 20, but NYSERDA spokeswoman Kate Muller on Thursday criticized FERC in a statement. "[FERC's] rule changes are an attempt to undermine New York's nation-leading policies to combat climate change," Muller said. "This decision will force customers to pay more to prop up expensive fossil fuel power plants while destroying our great state's precious natural resources and elevating community and resident risks in the face of increasingly severe weather events."
The Grid
— "China's skies are briefly clearer while factories stay shut," via Associated Press.
— "Chevron offering U.S. workers buyouts to trim staffing: sources," via Reuters.
— "A Trump insider embeds climate denial in scientific research," via The New York Times.
— "Americans are paying $34 billion too much for houses in floodplains," via Bloomberg.
— "GE says it's going green. Overseas, it's still pushing coal," via The Los Angeles Times.
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