Budget & Policy

As the federal government braces for a potential shutdown, Senate Democrats moved closer this week to passing a shortened Continuing Resolution to continue to fund the federal government heading into Fiscal Year 2014. 

Congressional opponents of EPA’s recently proposed carbon regulations began teeing up legislative challenges to the plan this week as Republican leaders vowed to attack the standards using as many avenues as possible in the months ahead. 

The Environmental Protection Agency named carbon capture and storage as the ‘best system of emission reduction’ for new coal plants under its landmark performance standards unveiled last week; however, the agency passed up the chance to do the same for capture on natural gas. 

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed landmark limits on carbon emissions from future power plants late last week, designating carbon capture and storage the technology of choice for cleaning up coal units. 

The Environmental Protection Agency is not planning to mandate carbon capture and storage as part of its upcoming carbon emissions standards for existing power plants, according to the agency’s top official.

Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) said this week that he is not happy with the way the Department of Energy has handled the recent leadership shakeup at the National Energy Technology Laboratory. 

Southern Company’s chief executive said this week that the utility giant may have “missed this one,” when referring to the company’s troubled Kemper County gasification plant in Mississippi, but defended the company’s management of the $4.3 billion carbon capture and storage project. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 10/4/13 IN CONGRESS Republican leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee called on the heads of five government agencies to brief committee staff on recent changes to the Obama Administration’s internal social cost of carbon (SCC) estimates. In a letter to the heads of the Departments of Energy, Agriculture, Commerce, […]

The Department of Energy’s recent award of the new Strategic Petroleum Reserve management contract to a team led by Fluor is coming under challenge, with DM Petroleum Operations Company having filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office Sept. 30. 

Shell subsidiary Cansolv Technologies Inc. and the French engineering, procurement and construction company Technip signed an agreement earlier this week aimed at marketing the Cansolv’s post-combustion capture technology. 

President Barack Obama’s pick to chair the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission formally withdrew his nomination Oct. 1 amid growing opposition from groups tied to the fossil fuel industry. 

Babcock & Wilcox’s Power Generation Group said late this week that it has signed an agreement with the FutureGen Alliance to perform Phase II front-end engineering and design work for FutureGen 2.0. 

Mississippi Power’s flagship carbon capture and storage facility at Kemper County will not make its planned May 2014 in-service date, the utility told state regulators this week.

The current federal government shutdown appears to have had varying impacts, so far, on the federal agencies that oversee carbon capture and storage and air pollution rules; while the Environmental Protection Agency has furloughed the bulk of its workforce, much of the Department of Energy appears to have largely stayed open for much of the week. 

House lawmakers unveiled the allocations for each appropriations subcommittee late last week, and funding is going to be tight in the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. 

The Senate this week unanimously confirmed MIT physicist Ernest Moniz to serve as the next Secretary of Energy. 

Despite substantial cost increases and an ongoing legal and regulatory battle with the Sierra Club, a Southern Company official said in a speech this week that the utility giant is still pleased with its multi-billion-dollar investment in its Kemper County IGCC project. 

Calling carbon capture and sequestration “an important part of the President's oil strategy and certainly the most important part of our efforts in terms of the dollars that we're spending within the Office of Fossil Energy,” acting Department of Energy Fossil Energy chief Chris Smith made it clear that the Obama Administration will be emphasizing the economic—as well as environmental—benefits of CCS in allowing U.S. coal resources to be utilized in a carbon-constrained economy. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 5/24/13 IN THE INDUSTRY The head of Babcock and Wilcox said late last week that some government regulations limiting CO2 could benefit the company going forward. In an interview last weekend on Platts Energy Week, B&W President and CEO James Ferland said that “some amount of regulation does create business” for […]

New Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz vowed to make carbon capture and storage and clean energy technology development some of his main priorities at the Department of Energy in a May 22 town hall-style event with employees. 

The Obama Administration’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy, may not see a Senate confirmation vote until July, Majority Leader Harry Reid alluded this week. 

A May 22 report from the Congressional Budget Office examining the impacts of a carbon tax on the nation’s environment and economy appears to have reinforced the beliefs of lawmakers on both sides of the climate policy debate—prompting some Democrats to underscore their commitment to pushing for the regulation of carbon emissions, while a powerful Senate Republican said the analysis underscores how much such a scheme could hurt the economy. 

FutureGen 2.0’s top official appeared optimistic heading into a Department of Energy-sponsored public information meeting in Jacksonville, Ill., this week, with local media reports noting little opposition to the $1.65 billion carbon capture and storage flagship at the subsequent event. 

The Oslo-based Aker Solutions said late last week that it has netted a contract to perform the world’s first capture carbon tests on cement production operations. 

The Department of Energy greenlighted $167 million in stimulus cost-share funding for NRG Energy’s W.A. Parish carbon capture and storage retrofit in Texas this week. 

Increasing costs at Mississippi Power’s Kemper County gasification facility were accompanied by abrupt leadership changes this week at the Southern Company subsidiary and an inquiry from state regulators into when executives knew of the overruns. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 5/31/13 IN THE INDUSTRY Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson has joined the technology giant Apple as the company’s top environmental officer, CEO Tim Cook announced earlier this week. Cook said Jackson would be reporting directly to him as Vice President for Environmental Initiatives. After being pressured by environmental groups […]

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who serves as ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee, proposed doubling federal funding for energy R&D this week. 

Workers at Archer Daniels Midland Company’s large-scale industrial capture project in central Illinois are expected to wrap up construction of the project’s surface facilities in the coming weeks as officials wait for a key CO2 storage permit decision from the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory say they have developed a process to directly capture CO2 from the atmosphere that could also have the added side benefits of producing hydrogen and offsetting ocean acidification.