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Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.Senate, House Move Toward DOI, EPA Spending Bill
Energy Brief: Week in Review & What’s Ahead
By Asha Glover, Morning Consult.
Senate, House Move Toward DOI, EPA Spending Bill
The Senate Appropriations Committee’s Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Subcommittee on Tuesday advanced its $32.034 billion fiscal 2017 bill to appropriate funds for agencies including the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The bill cuts EPA funding and would prohibit the Waters of the United States rule. However, it provides funding to help address water infrastructure issues, such as those in Flint, Mich.
The measure was advanced in 16-14 partisan vote Thursday. It has been reported to the Senate.
In the House, the Appropriations Committee also advanced their version of the bill, which is full of controversial riders. The bill would provide $32.1 billion to agencies, $1 billion below the Obama administration’s proposal.
Energy Bill Conference Path Is Still Unclear
Duke Energy Finalizes Second Swine WTE Project
By Megan Greenwalt, Waste 360.
Duke Energy has finalized a second deal in 2016 to buy captured methane gas derived from swine waste.
In March, the company announced a project with Carbon Cycle Energy to use swine waste-derived gas at four power plants in North Carolina.
For its newest project, the Charlotte, N.C.-based utility company will partner with Optima KV, a Wilmington, N.C.-based partnership that brings together experts in bioenergy, agriculture, project finance, and environmental stewardship. The project will be located at farms in Kenansville, N.C. -- the heart of Smithfield Foods' pork operations.
Nestlé Waters Opens Switzerland’s Largest Agricultural Waste to Biogas Plant
By Ben Messenger, Waste Management World
Drinks manufacturer, Nestlé Waters and renewable energy developer, Groupe E Greenwatt, have inaugurated Switzerland’s largest anaerobic digestion plant for recycling agricultural waste into biogas and fertiliser.
Located in Treize-Cantons the biogas plant will treat around 25,000 tonnes of manure and from 27 local farms and 3800 tonnes of organic wastefrom the processes that produce Nespresso and Nescafé.
An opening ceremony was attended by State Councilor Jacqueline de Quattro, head of the regional development and environment department.
California's cap-and-trade program faces daunting hurdles to avoid collapse
By Chris Megerian and Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times.
The linchpin of California’s climate change agenda, a program known as cap and trade, has become mired in legal, financial and political troubles that threaten to derail the state’s plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The program has been a symbol of the state’s leadership in the fight against global warming and a key source of funding, most notably for the high-speed rail project connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles.
But the legality of cap and trade is being challenged in court by a business group, and questions are growing about whether state law allows it to operate past 2020. With the end of the legislative session in August, Gov. Jerry Brown, lawmakers and interest groups of all stripes are laying the groundwork for what could become a battle royal over the future of California’s climate change programs.
The tax reform task force looms
By Bernie Becker, Politico
START GETTING READY: House Republican tax writers are starting to talk a big game about their tax reform framework expected later this month.
“It’s going to be bold,” said Rep. Pat Tiberi of Ohio. How bold? Rep. Kenny Marchant of Texas said he hoped not to “alarm people” by how “radically you lower the rate, and change the revenue side of it — how many deductions have to go away to get to that result.”
One of the big questions that’s always loomed over the GOP’s effort to set the 2017 agenda on taxes was just how many details to expect. The anti-poverty framework that House Republicans released last week, for instance, didn’t break a ton of new ground. And Republicans have circulated a lot of tax reform particulars in the past — former Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp’s plan, the framework in now-Speaker Paul Ryan’s budget — even if those details weren’t always universally embraced.
Energy tax extenders may get redux in House FAA bill
By Martine Powers, with help from Lauren Gardner and Jennifer Scholtes, Politico.
HERE WE GO AGAIN: As the countdown continues on how — and if — the House and the Senate will be able to agree on a strategy for a long-term FAA reauthorization before the July 15 deadline, POLITICO’s Esther Whieldon touched base with Reps. Tom Reed and Pat Meehan, who both told her that they’re interested in seeing those energy tax extenders — remember that kerfuffle a couple months ago? — tacked on to the House’s FAA reauthorization bill … whatever form that bill ends up taking.
Energy Bill Supporters Getting Nervous as Progress Stalls
By Jack Fitzpatrick, Morning Consult.
Outside observers are getting antsy waiting for the House and Senate to convene a conference committee to reconcile the differences between their wide-ranging energy bills.
Lobbyists and advocates offered mixed responses when asked by Morning Consult if they were confident lawmakers could hash out the differences between the bills. In a rare move, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a “key vote letter” on Monday, urging senators to support an eventual vote on whether to go to conference.
The House has already voted to go to conference on the Senate’s energy bill, but before doing so, it amended the bipartisan Senate bill to include language from its own bill, which had little support among Democrats. It then added several smaller Republican bills to the package that had prompted complaints and veto threats from the White House.
Santa Monica Bus Fleet Chooses Renewable Natural Gas
Via NGV Global News.
The City of Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus (BBB), a municipal bus operator in the Westside region of Los Angeles, has become one of the USA’s first municipal transit authorities to convert its fleet to biomethane, which fuel supplier Clean Energy Fuels Corp (Clean Energy) refers to as renewable natural gas (RNG), rated 90% cleaner than diesel. Earlier this year, BBB modified its original agreement with Clean Energy to transition the supply of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) for its fleet to renewable LNG (Redeem™), which is non-fracked methane harvested from organic waste in landfills.
With the announcement, BBB unveiled a new Bus ad campaign called “Bigger, Bluer, Skies” to emphasize the lower emissions and sustainability of this type of fuel. The process of harvesting and processing Redeem™ provides a product that has fewer impurities than conventional natural gas and is a cleaner burning fuel source.
California Proposes Methane Emission Rule
By Richard Nemec, NGI Daily Gas Price Index.
California air pollution regulators on Tuesday issued proposed regulations for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standards for all oil and natural gas facilities, including methane emission requirements for gas storage facilities.
A public hearing is scheduled July 21 in Sacramento.
"The proposed regulation covers GHG emissions, predominantly methane, from oil and natural gas production, natural gas gathering and boosting stations, and natural gas processing, as well as from natural gas storage and transmission compressor stations," said the California Air Resources Board (CARB).
NY Assembly passes clean-energy bill as advocates rally
By David Klepper, Associated Press.
ALBANY — Several labor unions and environmental groups teamed up Wednesday to urge New York lawmakers to do more to address climate change.
The coalition, called NY Renews, rallied outside the state Capitol before the Assembly voted late Wednesday to codify some of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s clean-energy goals.
Environmental groups have long lobbied for more aggressive action on climate change, but the participation of the state’s powerful organized labor movement could give the effort more muscle in Albany.
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