OVERNIGHT ENERGY: House caps off week with drilling vote

The event arrives as the White House is pledging to expand its international cooperative efforts on climate change.

And across the country: Interior Secretary Sally Jewell will address the Western Governors’ Association’s annual meeting in Park City, Utah.

{mosads}She speaks Friday, and later in the June 28-30 conference, governors will hear from Acting EPA Administrator Bob Perciasepe and Dan Poneman, the deputy secretary of Energy.

Click here for more on the conference, which includes a webcast.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Check out these stories that ran on E2-Wire Thursday …  

— Greens to State Dept: Redo Keystone XL report

— Source: Obama to tap new electric grid chief

— House votes to implement US-Mexico offshore energy deal

— Landrieu may float competing US-Mexico bill with revenue-sharing
— Senators float long-awaited nuclear waste bill

— Industry to EPA: Pull back ‘reckless’ gas sulfur regs

— Safety office blames ‘holes’ in regulations for Texas factory blast

— GOP to make EPA a climate ‘battleground’

— IMF: ‘Climate change will create jobs’

— Longtime State Dept. diplomat heads to International Energy Agency 

NEWS BITES:

House chairman: Avoid ‘political intervention’ on Keystone

House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) is pressing the State Department to find that its existing analysis of the Keystone XL pipeline passes President Obama’s climate test.

Obama on Tuesday said the pipeline would only win federal approval if it doesn’t “significantly exacerbate” carbon emissions.

Smith, in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry Thursday, said State’s lengthy analysis shows the project meets that standard.

“In applying the President’s new climate-centered approval criteria for the Keystone XL Pipeline, I urge the Department to rely upon sound science informed by its own extensive record and analysis, and prevent political intervention from influencing its decision,” he writes.

A draft State analysis in March found that approving or rejecting Keystone would not have much effect on the growth of oil sands development in Alberta. Environmentalists call State’s analysis badly flawed, and want a new study.

The pipeline would bring oil sands crude across the border en route to Gulf Coast refineries.

Report could slash BP penalties

The Houston Chronicle reports on a twist in BP’s civil trial over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill. From their story:

A London petroleum engineering professor hired by BP claims the U.S. government overestimated by 50 percent the amount of oil that spewed from the company’s undersea Gulf of Mexico well in 2010. The finding could cut the maximum Clean Water Act penalties BP faces by up to $7 billion.

Previously sealed court records reviewed by the Houston Chronicle provide for the first time in more than three years a detailed accounting of BP’s defense to the government’s official flow estimate.

Click here for the whole story.

A closer look at White House coal pledge

The Washington Post reports:

One of the more significant lines in President Obama’s climate-change speech this week got relatively scant notice. In a major policy shift, Obama said he would place sharp restrictions on U.S. government financing for new coal plants overseas.

The announcement comes after years of federal support for coal projects abroad, and it’s a shift that could divert billions of dollars away from a cheap source of electricity that contributes heavily to global warming.

Click here for the whole story.

Please send tips and comments to Ben Geman, ben.geman@digital-staging.thehill.com, and Zack Colman, zcolman@digital-staging.thehill.com.

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