Overnight Energy & Environment — Biden OK’s solar tariffs with changes

by Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk - 02/04/22 6:38 PM ET

Welcome to Friday’s Overnight Energy & Environment, your source for the latest news focused on energy, the environment and beyond. Subscribe here: digital-staging.thehill.com/newsletter-signup.

Today we’re looking at Biden splitting the difference on solar panel tariffs, the Biden administration taking Native American tribes’ side in a mineral dispute and a key Democrat following up on the EPA’s questions for the postal service.

For The Hill, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk. Write to us with tips: rfrazin@digital-staging.thehill.com and zbudryk@digital-staging.thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @RachelFrazin and @BudrykZack.

Let’s jump in.

Biden extends solar tariffs, with modifications

President Biden will extend Trump-era tariffs on solar cells, but with some exemptions a bipartisan group of senators called for in January, the White House confirmed Friday.

The Biden administration will extend the Section 201 tariffs, which cover cells and solar panels, another four years rather than allow them to expire Sunday, according to the White House announcement. However, the extension will exempt bifacial solar panels, double-sided panels that are typically used in larger utility installations. It will also increase the capacity of solar cells that can be imported duty-free from 2.5 gigawatts to 5.

The Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA), which has been one of the most vocal industry opponents of the tariffs, offered measured praise of the announcement, calling it a “balanced solution.”

“While we are disappointed with the decision to extend Section 201 tariffs on imported solar cells and panels, we are grateful to the Biden administration for clearly considering the range of issues affected by this decision,” SEIA CEO Abigail Ross Hopper said in a statement. “Administration officials arrived at a balanced solution in upholding the exclusion for bifacial panels and increasing the tariff rate quota for cells.”

George Hershman, the CEO of SOLV Energy, the biggest utility-scale solar installer in the U.S., also commended the bifacial panel exemption and said further policy assistance such as solar tax credits was necessary.

“Instead of creating barriers for renewable energy deployment, the solar industry needs an investment tax credit that will strengthen U.S. solar manufacturing and help us build a brighter future. I look forward to working with the Biden Administration toward that vision,” Hershman said in a statement.

Read more about the extension here.

COMPETITIVENESS BILL PASSES

The House passed legislation on Friday aimed at bolstering domestic supply chains and scientific research to make the U.S. more competitive with nations like China.

Lawmakers passed the bill largely along party lines, 222-210, with one Republican voting for it and one Democrat voting no.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who backed the bill, authored numerous provisions related to boosting supply chains, while Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), who voted “no,” said in a statement she objected to “problematic, poorly-vetted provisions” related to trade.

Passage comes about seven months after the Senate passed its version in June with the support of 18 GOP senators.

So…now what? Both chambers will now have to reconcile their competing versions and ultimately reach an agreement that can draw at least 10 Republicans in the evenly split upper chamber, since it will be subject to Senate rules requiring at least 60 votes for most legislation.

The massive legislative package includes measures to address the global semiconductor chip shortage and strains on the U.S. supply chain, both of which have contributed to the recent spike in inflation.

That includes $52 billion to incentivize domestic semiconductor chip production as well as $45 billion in grants and loans through the Department of Commerce to help support and enhance manufacturing facilities to strengthen domestic supply chains.

It would further increase funding for science research at the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy, in addition to making investments to recruit more people to work in fields related to science, technology, engineering and math.

And, the House legislation has a number of additional energy- and environment-related provisions, including:

Giving $4 billion annually in contributions to the UN’s Green Climate Fund, which helps developing countries adapt to climate change, for two years
Devoting $600 million annually for a new Energy Department program that gives grants and loans for solar energy facilities for five years
Putting$ 75 million each year toward electric grid security for five years
Reauthorizing coral reef protections

Interior sides with tribes in mineral dispute

The Biden administration has decided that contested minerals beneath a portion of the Missouri River belong to three tribal nations and not the state of North Dakota.

The legal opinion from Interior Department solicitor Bob Anderson on Friday backing the three tribes represents a turn from the Trump administration, which had backed North Dakota’s claims to the materials.

What did he say? “My decision today upholds decades of existing precedent holding that the Missouri riverbed belongs to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (MHA) Nation,” Anderson said in a statement.

“Today’s action, based on extensive historical and legal review, underscores the Department’s commitment to upholding its trust and treaty obligations in accordance with the law,” he added.

This is not the first time the administration has indicated that it would take this approach. Last year it withdrew a Trump-era legal opinion that sided with North Dakota.

But Friday’s action shows the Biden administration is not just withdrawing its support from North Dakota, but is supporting the claims of the three tribes.

Anderson, in the opinion, cited an 1851 treaty and subsequent executive orders saying that the tribes’ territory surrounded the Missouri River.

Both MHA Nation and North Dakota have tried to claim rights to the minerals. The Trump-era opinion, which sided with the state, had argued that North Dakota had the mineral rights because of a legal doctrine giving new states that enter the union the same rights as the original 13 states.

Read more about the opinion here.

Senator presses Postal Service on EV plans

The chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee pressed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy for answers on the progress of the electrification of the U.S. Postal Service’s vehicle fleet Friday, days after a similar request from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In the letter to DeJoy, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said the Postal Service has a “prime opportunity” to spearhead the federal government’s transition to electric vehicles and called for the agency to complete a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for its vehicle purchases.

From Carper’s mouth: “I am gravely concerned by recent communications from the EPA and CEQ [White House Council on Environmental Quality] that the USPS Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV) provides a fundamentally flawed analysis that underestimates the long-term costs of operating and maintaining gasoline-fueled vehicles, and overestimates the costs of purchasing and charging electric delivery vans,” Carper added.

The Delaware Democrat also expressed concerns that the plan would hurt Postal Service competitiveness compared to the private sector, noting that Amazon has entered a contract to receive 100,000 electric delivery trucks from Rivian. FedEx, meanwhile, is planning to buy tens of thousands of electric vehicles by 2030, with a goal of carbon neutrality by 2040.

The story so far: On Wednesday, both the EPA and the CEQ sent letters to DeJoy, a longtime donor to former President Trump, calling on him to cancel the planned purchase of up to 165,000 gas-powered vehicles for the Postal Service fleet. EPA Associate Administrator for Policy Vicki Arroyo noted in the letter that the plan approved by DeJoy would only require 10 percent of new Postal Service trucks to be electrified.

“A ten-percent commitment to clean vehicles, with virtually no fuel efficiency gains for the other 90 percent is plainly inconsistent with international, national, and many state GHG emissions reduction targets, as well as specific national policies to move with deliberate speed toward clean, zero-emitting vehicles,” she wrote.

Read more about Carper’s letter here.

ON TAP FOR NEXT WEEK

Tuesday:

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will reexamine the nomination of Laura Daniel-Davis to be Interior’s assistant secretary for land and minerals management, and will also look at his picks to lead the Energy Information Administration and the Energy Department’s Office of Electricity
The House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing examining Big Oil’s climate pledges
The House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing titled “Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Environmental Policy Making: The Role of Environmental Organizations and Grantmaking Foundations

Wednesday:

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on the implementation of a 2020 public lands law known as the Great American Outdoors Act. Officials from the Interior and Agriculture departments will testify.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing looking at bills on nuclear energy and nuclear waste.

Thursday:

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on clean hydrogen energy

WHAT WE’RE READING

Nebraska senators consider bill to give regulators authority to order environmental cleanup sooner (Scottsbluff Star-Herald)
Fires in Colombia’s Amazon spark alarm over deforestation (Reuters)
Maryland’s environment head “outraged” by Back River pollution findings (KPVI)
Inside Regan’s meeting with an anti-Pebble mine billionaire (E&E News)