E2-Wire

OVERNIGHT ENERGY: House lawmakers prepare for silent Solyndra hearing

by Andrew Restuccia and Ben Geman - 09/22/11 11:32 PM ET

Every Republican member of the House Energy panel’s Oversight and Investigations subcommittee signed a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu Thursday requesting more documents on the Solyndra loan guarantee. The lawmakers are seeking all communications between DOE and the White House and Treasury Department on the loan.

At the same time, top Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats called on Republicans to broaden their investigation into the Solyndra loan guarantee to “examine whether U.S. policies and incentives are adequate to ensure that U.S. manufacturers can compete effectively in the global solar market.”

Ahead of Friday’s hearing, Democrats on the panel released a memo pushing back on Republican criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of the loan guarantee.

“To date, the Committee has received no documents indicating political favoritism played a role in the decisions involving the loan guarantee for Solyndra,” the memo says.

The Solyndra bankruptcy has reverberated far beyond the House Energy panel: it has spurred a broad investigation into federal loans by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee as well as investigations at the Justice and Treasury departments.

And, as of press time, House Republicans were mulling a proposal to cut funding for the program to offset the cost of emergency disaster aid included in a stopgap spending bill.

You can read up-to-the-minute updates on the spending bill fight on our Floor Action blog and on E2-Wire.

NEWS BITES:

EPA’s Jackson, Republicans spar over power reliability: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson is parrying GOP claims that new rules to cut power plant pollution will jeopardize the reliability of electricity supplies.

“In 40 years the Clean Air Act has never caused a reliability problem,” Jackson told a House Energy and Commerce Committee panel Thursday.

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) told Jackson that the recently finalized Cross-State Air Pollution Rule could spur a substantial number of power plant shutdowns.

Texas power company Luminant this month said the rule — which cuts particulate and smog-forming pollution — would force it to shutter two units at a coal plant. Burgess said significantly more will follow in his state.

More broadly, Many Republicans and some industry group critics allege that various upcoming rules, taken together, will jeopardize reliability.

Burgess warned of a “significant restriction on the ability to deliver electricity in the state of Texas” under the Cross-State rule, and said this could harm public health if people lose access to air conditioning.

But Jackson said companies are inaccurately claiming that the regulations will force shutdowns when in fact power company decisions are based on other factors.

Burgess bristled at Jackson’s claims that the rule can be imposed without jeopardizing power supplies.

“What if you’re wrong? Are you infallible?” he asked.

“Of course I am not,” Jackson replied. “But the 40-year history shouldn’t be ignored just because of doomsday scenarios by those who want to stop the public health protections in this rule.”

A GOP member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently expressed concern about the reliability effects of EPA rules, while FERC’s chairman, Democrat Jon Wellinghoff, was more upbeat. More on the FERC views here.

House Republican: Expand drilling to pay for highways: Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) is picking up where House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) left off last week.

She’s floating legislation that would expand offshore oil-and-gas leasing and steer lease bids and royalty revenues into highway and inland waterway projects.

“The Highway Trust Fund is going broke at a time when our nation’s transportation system needs serious upgrades. Instead of increasing the Gas Tax or fees, let’s take the money generated from expanded energy exploration — which will also create thousands of jobs — and invest it an area where we know we’ll get the biggest bang for our buck,” Capito said in a statement.

Boehner said last week that Congress should tie the next highway bill to an expansion of domestic oil and natural-gas drilling.

ON TAP FRIDAY

In the House, the witching hour for EPA: The House could vote Friday on GOP-led legislation that would mandate new interagency economic analyses of EPA regulations, and delay — potentially indefinitely – a pair of major air pollution rules.

The TRAIN Act — or Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act — is a pillar of efforts by Republicans and some conservative Democrats to thwart EPA policies that they claim will hinder the economy.

The bill would create a new Commerce Department-led interagency panel called the Committee for the Cumulative Analysis of Regulations that Impact Energy and Manufacturing in the United States.

It would review various EPA rules to gauge their effect on U.S. economic competitiveness, energy prices, employment and other areas.

The measure delays a recently finalized rule to cut interstate power plant emissions that worsen ozone and particulate pollution, and an upcoming rule to cut mercury and other air toxics from power plants.

Lawmakers are also slated to vote on an amendment that would mandate minimum delays in these rules that are longer than the underlying bill requires.

Rep Ed Whitfield’s (R-Ky.) amendment also makes other changes to EPA’s Clean Air Act powers that some Democrats and environmentalists say would badly weaken public health protections. More here.

At press time, the votes on amendments and the bill appeared slated for Friday, but House plans were fluid as the legislation was under debate Thursday evening.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…

– Dems warn of heart attacks, asthma, deformed babies if EPA reined in
– BP spill hearing delayed, GOP claims administration withheld witnesses
– House OKs rule for EPA oversight legislation
– House GOP mulling cuts to DOE loan program in spending bill
– Pelosi: GOP using disaster aid as excuse to kill clean-vehicles program
– Axelrod denies knowledge of White House influence on Solyndra loan
– EPA spells out ozone plans ‘mindful’ of tough economy
– GOP, Dems spar over bill requiring EPA regulatory review
– Stimulus could haunt Sheriff Biden
– GOP lawmakers ask Obama to delay mercury regulations
– Issa: There could be more Solyndras
– EPA sought most lenient ozone standard before Obama pulled plug
– House GOP: Where are the ‘green jobs’?
– House lawmakers argue over definition of ‘green job’
– EPA to enforce 2008 smog rules
– Senior Republican: Obama’s smog reversal was campaign gambit
– For Jackson, it’s not easy being green