Energy & Environment — Biden to order ramped-up EV battery production

Welcome to Wednesday’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 a planned presidential directive on electric vehicle materials, new federal energy-efficiency building code and a poll on how Americans are feeling about energy. 

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 to invoke Defense Production Act for electric vehicle battery materials 

The Energy Department on Wednesday announced new energy efficiency standards for federal buildings set to take effect in 2023. 

The new requirements will mandate all new federal buildings to comply with the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) beginning next April. Any major retrofits to existing federal buildings would also be covered under the updated codes. 

The department also announced new proposed energy efficiency standards for residential pool heaters and air conditioners. Combined with the building codes, the federal government estimated the proposals would save more than a net $15 billion over the next three decades and eliminate the equivalent of 14.4 million homes’ carbon emissions. 

Similarly, a departmental analysis indicated that state-level updates to comply with the latest IECC building codes would save up to $3.24 billion in yearly energy costs. The codes would be optional for state-owned buildings. 

What’s next? The department said the proposals were part of broader Biden administration plans to issue more than 100 appliance and equipment standards by the end of the year, which it estimated would result in an average savings of over $100 annually per household across the U.S. The rules are projected to cut emissions equivalent to removing 7.9 million cars from the road over a 30-year period. 

The administration has already announced a number of reversals of Trump-era energy efficiency standard rollbacks for consumer products, including restoring 2013 restrictions on water flow for shower heads. 

Read more about the new standards here.

More Americans worried about energy costs, availability: poll  

More Americans are concerned about the availability and affordability of energy now than they have been in a decade, according to a new survey from Gallup.  

The poll found that 47 percent of Americans had a great deal of concern over the cost and availability of energy. Meanwhile, 30 percent said they worry a fair amount, 17 percent said only a little and 5 percent said not at all. 

One year ago, 37 percent of people had a great deal of concern about energy. That figure has more than doubled since 2020, when 22 percent of Americans had a great deal of concern about the issue, Gallup reported. 

Similar levels of concern over energy have not been seen since 2012, when 48 percent said they worried about energy costs a great deal, according to the survey giant. 

Gallup’s poll also found more people found the energy situation in the U.S. to be very serious.  

Specifically, 44 percent of U.S. adults said the situation was “very serious.” Another 46 percent called it “fairly serious” and 10 percent said it was “not at all serious.” Last year, 32 percent of respondents described the situation as very serious. 

Read more from The Hill’s Monique Beal. 

ON TAP FOR TOMORROW

The Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to examine the opportunities and challenges facing domestic critical mineral mining, processing, refining and reprocessing.

WHAT WE’RE READING

• GSA to impose first national carbon standard for concrete (E&E News) 
• Wind and solar generated a record 10% of the world’s power in 2021, report shows (CNN) 
• Poland says its ban on all Russian oil and gas imports is the most radical in Europe (NPR) 
• Shell filed appeal against landmark Dutch climate ruling (Reuters) 

And finally, something offbeat and off-beat: It’s always the last place you look. 

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Energy & Environment page for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.