OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Senior House Republican plots EPA roadblock

Such a provision could emerge in the
next continuing resolution to keep the government funded beyond early
March, or it could hitch a ride on a stand-alone Interior-EPA spending
bill for fiscal year 2012.

Simpson said he prefers a delay
over efforts to overturn EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse-gas
emissions outright and believes a delay is “probably” the approach the
GOP will employ.

He wants a delay of the rules — which began
phasing in this year — so Congress has a chance to examine climate
change.

“We need to slow down the EPA,” Simpson said.

(Simpson,
for the record, is also among the dozens of co-sponsors of Tennessee
Republican Marsha Blackburn’s bill to fully overturn EPA’s authority to
regulate greenhouse gases).

Last year, under Democratic rule,
Simpson’s panel deadlocked 7-7 to prevent a two-year delay from
advancing. “I suspect that has a much better chance of passing now,” he
said.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) is pushing hard for
Senate action on a two-year delay.

Upton favors
tougher action

While Simpson eyes a delay-EPA measure,
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.)
recently criticized the idea.

He has instead called for
overturning EPA rules outright, or, if that can’t get traction, delaying
them until legal challenges that industry groups and state have filed
work their way through the courts.

Upton, in a Wall Street
Journal op-ed late last month, said a two-year pause would be
“arbitrary.”

“It was selected because a handful of Democrats
needed political cover. There is no way to know whether two years will
be sufficient time for the courts to complete their work,” Upton wrote
in a piece co-authored by Tim Phillips, president of the conservative
group Americans for Prosperity. The two said they are “not convinced”
that carbon emissions are a problem in need of regulation.

But
overturning EPA’s authority is highly, highly unlikely to pass the
Senate. Even a delay faces big hurdles, but it could gain traction as part
of a must-pass spending bill that would also be tougher for the White
House to veto.

ON TAP THURSDAY I: Interior responds to oil
spill report

Michael Bromwich, the Interior Department’s top
offshore drilling regulator, will appear at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies. He will deliver his first public remarks
since the presidential commission that probed the BP oil spill released its
final report Tuesday.

Bromwich heads Interior’s Bureau of
Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

ON TAP
THURSDAY II:  CIA climate official talks climate-security nexus

Larry
Kobayashi, director of the CIA’s Center on
Climate Change and National Security, will speak at a forum hosted by
the Pew Charitable Trusts.

ON TAP THURSDAY III: Commerce
Secretary talks U.S.-China relations

Commerce Secretary Gary
Locke will discuss the U.S. commercial relationship with China at a
U.S.-China Business Council forum. The event comes at a time of tension
between the two powers over China’s green energy trade practices. Obama
administration officials allege that Chinese wind industry subsidies run
afoul of World Trade Organization rules.

ON TAP THURSDAY IV:
Justice Dept. natural resources official speaks

Assistant
Attorney General for Energy and Natural Resources Ignacia Moreno will
discuss the division’s 2011 priorities at the Washington, D.C., Bar
Association.

NEWS BITES:

Appeals court rejects Texas’ attempt to block EPA climate rules

A federal appeals court rejected an effort by Texas officials to block the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing greenhouse-gas permits in the state.

It’s the latest effort by Texas officials and industry groups to stop the EPA from regulating carbon emissions in the state. Texas officials refused to issue greenhouse-gas permits as required by an EPA rule, so the agency stepped in and said it would issue the permits on behalf of the state.

David Doniger, at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a blog post, “Maybe it’s too much to ask, but perhaps now the State’s leaders will focus on protecting both Texas companies, who need a way to get valid permits, and Texas citizens, who need safeguards from unchecked pollution.”

But the National Association of Manufacturers blasted the ruling, arguing that EPA’s efforts to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions will lead to uncertainty.

“The EPA’s coercive action places unnecessary financial burdens on manufacturers and drives up energy costs on the nation’s job creators,” NAM Deputy General Counsel Quentin Riegel said in a statement.

Hall criticizes spill commission report for offering “commentary” on drilling

House Science Committee Chairman Ralph Hall (R-Texas) criticized the national oil spill commission’s report on the causes of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill for going beyond the facts.

“Not surprisingly, the report goes beyond addressing the root causes of the accident and offers commentary on offshore drilling as a whole, a concern that this Committee raised when the Commission was chartered,” Hall said in a statement Wednesday.

Hall is the latest senior Republican who has offered a lukewarm response to the report, signaling that lawmakers are going to face an uphill battle in passing an oil spill response bill in the chamber.

Poll: Majority of Americans support long-term investments in renewable energy

A Rasmussen poll released Wednesday says that 66 percent of Americans say investing in wind and solar energy technology is a better long-term investment for the country than investing in fossil fuels.

The poll also finds that 44 percent of Americans believe global warming is cause by “planetary trends,” rather than by human activity.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…

E2 reported Wednesday that a key staffer on the oil spill commission would be releasing a supplemental report in the coming weeks. We told you about new federal data that say 2010 is tied with 2005 as the hottest year on record. The data led some Democrats to call for efforts to address climate change. And we told you about the EPA’s decision not to apply its greenhouse gas standards to biomass energy.

Next, we reported that a House Democrat fears further oil leaks now that the Trans Alaska Pipeline has been restarted. We told you about Sen. Byron Dorgan’s (D-N.D.) plans to write “eco-thrillers.” And we penned a primer on the oil spill commission’s report and what it means for Congress and the administration.
 
AROUND THE WEB

BP executive Suttles retiring

“Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer of exploration and production and the company’s main face of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the early days of the crisis, has decided to retire, BP’s chief executive told employees today in an internal memo,” the Houston Chronicle reports.

“But he will be chiefly remembered as BP’s point person for delivering daily doses of bad news to the public after the Macondo well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in April that killed 11 workers and launched the nation’s worst oil spill.”

Officials fear future oil pipeline problems

“The four-day shutdown of the Trans Alaska Pipeline, which sent a jolt through world energy markets, pushing the price of oil up $4 a barrel in two trading days, could be a sign of things to come, according to officials,” CNBC reports.

“That’s because the 33-year-old pipeline could outlive its usefulness, unless new sources of oil are developed in northern Alaska.”