WRAP UP

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
06/08/12

IN CONGRESS

Two of the highest-ranking Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee called for the Republican committee leadership to hold a hearing on the status of carbon capture and storage technology earlier this week. In a letter to Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Energy and Power Subcommittee Chair Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Energy and Power Subcommittee Ranking Member Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) said the time is right to examine developments in the field of CCS. The pair said that while the Committee has examined the technology on numerous occasions in the past, the panel has not heard an update in several years. “Recent developments on CCS have implications for its viability and expansion, yet the Committee has held neither briefings nor hearings on these developments,” the letter says. The duo cited the Department of Energy’s recent release of its North American Carbon Storage Atlas, the Interagency Task Force on CCS’ 2010 recommendations for deployment and recent developments in CO2 utilization as reasons to hold a hearing.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s biggest critics in Congress, said this week that the Senate will likely vote on his bill to nullify EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards within the next two weeks. In a floor speech earlier this week, Inhofe said he was getting close to the 51 votes needed to formally disapprove of the regulation, but urged colleagues to join him in the effort. “The fundamental question before the United States Senate will be whether my colleagues will have the courage to stand up to President Obama and put the brakes on his abusive, out of control EPA that has openly admitted that ‘if you want to build a coal plant you got a big problem,’ or if they are going to stand with President Obama and his administration’s ‘crucify’ agenda,” Inhofe said. The senior Senator from Oklahoma brought up the resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, a tool rarely used successfully that requires a simple majority in the House and Senate to disapprove of an executive branch regulation. However, the act also requires the approval of the President, who is unlikely to nullify his own Administration’s regulations. Inhofe said he does not think Obama will override a resolution of disapproval during an election year.

A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee cleared legislation this week that aims to ensure that electricity generating units complying with Department of Energy emergency orders to operate to prevent grid blackouts will not have to later face penalties from the Environmental Protection Agency for not being in compliance with its environmental regulations. Under the Federal Power Act, DOE has the authority to demand that utilities keep units online to avoid rolling blackouts or other reliability-related emergencies. However, those orders sometimes contradict EPA regulations that bar units from operating beyond a certain number of hours. While the scenario has occurred on several occasions in the past—in some cases utilities have been fined or sued by for noncompliance—many utilities have recently voiced their concerns that the conflict will arise more frequently as utilities comply with EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. Introduced by a group of Republicans and centrist Democrats, the “Grid Reliability Conflicts Act” aims to amend the Federal Power Act so that EPA cannot punish unities operating in noncompliance if DOE orders the units to run.

A group of House Republicans unveiled a package of seven energy bills earlier this week that aims to reduce barriers to domestic energy production and limit Environmental Protection Agency regulations. House leaders said that the “Domestic Energy and Jobs Act,” a collection of measures that individually passed the House Energy and Commerce and Natural Resources committees earlier this Congress, could face a final floor vote as early as this month. The package includes legislation that would require an interagency committee to analyze the cumulative economic impacts of new EPA regulations affecting ozone, oil refineries and fuel efficiency standards for automobiles. EPA then would have to suspend implementation of the rulemakings until six months after Congress receives a report on the analysis. Supporters said that the legislation could help limit the impact of new regulations on gas prices, jobs and the economy. The package is expected to sail through the House, but will likely not brought up in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

AT DOE

The National Energy Technology Laboratory released a new manual this week highlighting best practices for CO2 storage wells. The document, part of a series related to different aspects of the carbon capture, utilization and storage value chain, focuses on best management activities related to the planning, permitting, designing, drilling, implementing and decommissioning of CO2 storage wells. NETL says the best practices build on the experiences of DOE’s Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships, as well as more than a century of oil industry operations. “It is not a ‘how to’ book for developing these projects; rather it provides a roadmap and resource for lessons learned about well-management issues and what project planners and operators can expect as a project unfolds,” the manual says. The document focuses on refining a site development plan; site preparation; drilling and completion operations; injection operations and post-injection operations.

IN THE STATES

Environmental groups sued the state of New Jersey this week over Gov. Chris Christie’s May 2011 decision to remove the state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. The Natural Resources Defense Council and Environment New Jersey filed suit in a Trenton appellate court, saying that Christie’s move was illegal because under state law he was required to notify constituents of his intention and allow for a public comment period. “Governor Christie unilaterally made his decision to leave RGGI—without taking any input from stakeholders or the public,” Matt Elliott, a spokesperson for Environment New Jersey, said in a statement. “As we contend today, his actions are not only bad public policy, but also illegal.” At the time, Christie said the 10-state cap-and-trade scheme “doesn’t work” and was not effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. He said New Jersey’s participation in the compact made the state a less attractive place to do business, particularly compared to neighboring Pennsylvania, which was not involved in the program. The state formally withdrew from RGGI at the end of 2011.

ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT

Natural gas will continue to have a “bright future” over the next several years, particularly in China and the U.S., and will generate nearly as much electricity in the latter as coal by 2017, according to a new report released earlier this week by the International Energy Agency. The medium-term market report, which projects world energy trends for the next five years, predicts that the U.S. will continue to benefit greatly from lower natural gas prices that have resulted from the development of unconventional resources such as shale, tight gas and coalbed methane production. IEA expects the U.S. to also benefit from increased Chinese demand, particularly for liquefied natural gas, which the U.S. could export. China is expected to double natural gas consumption over the next five years, and soon will constitute a quarter of the world’s new demand for gas, according to the report. “As gas competes against other energy sources in all market segments, notably in the power sector, pricing conditions are a key element to keep it competitive everywhere,” IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said in a statement.