Daily on Energy: Skirmishes over natural gas at the city level

 | November 22, 2019 12:08 PM

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SKIRMISHES OVER NATURAL GAS AT THE CITY LEVEL: The battle over natural gas is just beginning — and it’s already heating up quickly.

The California Restaurant Association filed late Thursday the first lawsuit against a city’s ban of natural gas infrastructure in new buildings. The group cited the recent, widespread blackouts in the state — where utilities have had to shut off power to manage the risk of wildfires — as proof that the policy in Berkeley is misguided and would be harmful to the cities’ residents.

“In its rush to be the first all-electric city in California, Berkeley bypassed clear federal and state law,” the restaurant association said in its filing. The group wants a California federal district court to invalidate Berkeley’s ban and stop it from going into effect in January.

The fight in Berkeley is the first, but certainly not the last.

More than a dozen California cities have followed Berkeley’s lead, and the trend is now heading east. The town of Brookline, Massachusetts, overwhelmingly approved Wednesday a bylaw that goes much further — banning natural gas infrastructure in new buildings, as well as in renovations. The ban will take effect in 2021.

The politics of natural gas: How the court responds to the lawsuit over Berkeley’s policy will be an important indicator to cities across the country weighing how to push farther and faster to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Mayors and other local officials have started to take bolder action on climate change amid inaction on the federal level, and the power they wield isn’t insignificant. Bans on things like new natural gas infrastructure or internal combustion engines, which some cities (mostly abroad for now) are considering, could have a huge impact on local emissions.

Backers of the ban in Brookline, for example, say the policy will cut carbon from buildings by 15% in the next three decades, according to The Boston Globe.

It could also have a pretty big effect on peoples’ way of life: And that’s the major argument industry groups — especially natural gas producers and utilities — are bringing to the fight.

“Californians aren’t prepared to give up all the benefits this fuel provides and I’m not surprised to see this action taken to fight for the choice of clean, affordable energy,” Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the American Gas Association, told Abby in a statement on the Berkeley lawsuit.

She added Berkeley’s ban doesn’t take into account the benefits of natural gas to homes and businesses, “its affordability and reliability, not to mention its positive track record of emissions reductions.”

The impact of natural gas bans in other cities could be even more acute, industry has argued. That’s in part because not every region in the country has been moving away from natural gas heating like California.

Use of natural gas in home heating is actually increasing in the Northeast, according to data from the Energy Information Administration, as use of fuel oil declines.

Overall, about half of U.S. homes use natural gas for heating, cooking, and other appliances, the EIA said. In 2018, almost a quarter of the U.S. residential sector’s energy consumption was from natural gas.

Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe) and Abby Smith (@AbbySmithDC). Email jsiegel@washingtonexaminer.com or asmith@washingtonexaminer.com for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.

INDUSTRY PRODS WHITE HOUSE TO EASE ENVIRONMENTAL PERMITTING FOR INFRASTRUCTURE: A broad coalition of business groups wrote a letter to the White House Friday outlining their expectations for the Trump administration’s soon-to-be released reforms to the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, implementation in permitting and environmental reviews for infrastructure projects.

The White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) submitted proposed updates to the regulations governing NEPA to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs last month, signaling a public release is coming soon.

Organizations representing agriculture, energy, forestry, manufacturing, and transportation called on CEQ chairman Mary Neumayr to “modernize” the NEPA process to prevent “unreasonable costs” and “long project delays” that they say currently result from permitting reviews, which can take up to six years.

The group, which includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Petroleum Institute, Edison Electric Institute, National Association of Manufacturers, American Farm Bureau Federation, also called for a narrowing of NEPA reviews to focus “on information specifically related or consequential to the federal action at hand, as opposed to an overly broad and exhaustive analysis of all issues.”

Their letter comes after more than 15 of the industry groups met with the Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday to push the same message.

CEQ has not issued a major update to NEPA’s regulations in nearly four decades, the industry groups note. While the Trump administration can’t change the underlying statute absent action from Congress, the law is broadly written and courts have historically deferred to CEQ’s interpretation of NEPA’s regulation

PIVOTING TO PLASTICS: The Energy Department launched a program Thursday to partner with the private sector in developing technologies to recycle plastic and keep waste out of rivers, oceans, and landfills.

The Energy Department is framing the "Plastics Innovation Challenge" as an extension of the Trump administration's approach to energy policy, in which it looks to incentivize private sector innovation, as opposed to regulations or mandates to drive solutions.

"We see this as an example of American environmental leadership under the Trump administration," a senior Energy Department official told Josh. "We believe the answer to our energy and environment challenges is innovation."

The Energy Department plans to announce a series of funding opportunities in the coming months for the industry, national labs, and universities to develop technologies that stop plastic from entering the ocean — or collect plastic more easily once it has entered waterways.

It also seeks to encourage the production of new plastics that are recyclable by design and to foster the development of technologies that upcycle waste chemicals from plastic into other commercial products.

BROUILLETTE ON THE WAY: The Senate voted 74 to 18 Thursday on a procedural measure to advance the nomination of Dan Brouillette to be secretary of the Energy Department.

That tees up the real vote for Monday, Dec. 2, the first day after Congress’ Thanksgiving recess.

The majority of Democrats voted to proceed on Brouillette’s nomination, with notable “yea” votes including Sens. Tom Carper and Chris Coons of Delaware, Tom Udall of New Mexico, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

SURPRISING IMPEACHMENT NUGGET…PUTIN FEARED FRACKING: Mark this in the things we did not expect to learn from the impeachment hearings. Former National Security Council official and Russia expert Fiona Hill on Thursday testified that she heard Russian President Vladimir Putin at a 2011 conference describe American fracking as a "great threat" to Russia, a position he has emphasized ever since.

The recollection came in an impeachment hearing when Rep. Mike Conaway of Texas was asking Hill about Putin's propaganda efforts in the U.S. through the television channel RT, which pushes anti-fracking messaging.

Hill said Russia saw the growth of U.S. fracking as a threat given that it undermines Russia's efforts to dominate the energy sector.

“In November 2011, I actually sat next to Vladimir Putin, at a conference, in which he made precisely that point," she said. “So he started in 2011 making it very clear that he saw American fracking as a great threat to Russian interests. We were all struck by how much he stressed this issue. And since 2011, and since that particular juncture, Putin has made a big deal of this.”

YOU KNOW THE DRILL: The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management proposed a draft plan Thursday that could open up more acres of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to oil and gas drilling.

The National Petroleum Reserve is an often overlooked 23.5-million acre area of federal land in northwest Alaska — roughly the size of Indiana — where there has long been energy development, as opposed to the more controversial neighboring Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

BLM released a new draft leasing plan and environmental impact statement for the petroleum reserve, which publishes in the federal register Friday, that included among various options the possibility of opening an additional 6.5 million acres for drilling. Energy leasing is currently limited to 11.8 million acres after the Obama administration in 2013 withdrew roughly half of the reserve from development, on the grounds that certain areas provide habitat for caribou, migratory birds, and polar bears.

Revealing their hand? The Trump administration proposal offers alternatives ranging from increasing the land available to drilling to 18.3 million acres, or decreasing it to 11.4 million acres. It did not pick a preferred option, but a statement from a BLM official seemed to hint at their preference for more development.

“With advancements in technology and increased knowledge of the area, it was prudent to develop a new plan that provides greater economic development of our resources while still providing protections for important resources and subsistence access,” said BLM Alaska State Director Chad Padgett. The Alaska congressional delegation, led by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, issued a statement supportive of more development in the reserve, given the state’s reliance on revenues from oil and gas production.

BLM will take comment on its proposal for 60 days before finalizing its plan.

NEW YORK MUST EXPLAIN ITSELF: The New York attorney general’s office won’t be able to drop two of its fraud claims against oil major ExxonMobil scot-free — or at least not without some reasoning.

The attorney general’s office will have to provide that explanation by Wednesday, according to an order from New York Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager earlier this week. Exxon’s attorney Ted Wells Jr. had urged Ostrager to not let New York drop the claims.

If you remember: Jonathan Zweig, New York’s assistant attorney general, informed the court in closing arguments of the three-week long trial against Exxon that the state would no longer be claiming Exxon knowingly and willfully misled investors on how it accounts for the financial risks of climate change. Instead, it would focus solely on its claims under the Martin Act, a broad New York state law that doesn’t require proof of intent of shareholder fraud.

Zweig attempted to gloss over New York’s dropping of the claims in his closing statement, but the move appeared a complete surprise to Ostrager and enraged Wells, who argued at the time that the judge should rule on those claims anyway.

Ostrager, in his order, also asks New York to “address the impact, if any, of Exxon’s failure to move for a judgment on the fraud claims at the close of evidence.”

NO MORE ‘DARK WATERS’: The Environmental Protection Agency is making a multi-million dollar investment to expand research into the effects of the “forever chemicals” per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, on rural America.

The agency’s announcement of the $4.8 million program comes as PFAS’ damages to agriculture are getting the Hollywood treatment. The PFAS-focused movie “Dark Waters” premieres today, and it’s based on the true story of attorney Rob Bilott (played by Mark Ruffalo in the movie), who took on chemical giant DuPont for exposing a community in West Virginia to PFAS chemicals. The story started with 100 dead cows.

The EPA’s new research funds follow through on commitments made in a PFAS Action Plan “to close the gaps in the science around PFAS as quickly as possible,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement.

The Rundown

New York Times A wet year causes farm woes far beyond the floodplains

Reuters Tesla's electric pickup breaks the mould with angular design and armored glass

Wall Street Journal How the Saudi Aramco IPO came back to life

Bloomberg Bill Gates says his axed nuclear reactor is a trade war warning

Washington Post Nine climate activists arrested after storming Nancy Pelosi’s office

Calendar

MONDAY | NOVEMBER 25

House and Senate are out for Thanksgiving recess