OVERNIGHT ENERGY: House GOP outlines energy plan

by Timothy Cama - 02/09/15 6:10 PM ET

GOP READIES ENERGY PLATFORM: House Republicans Monday unveiled a four-part policy framework to guide them in writing comprehensive energy legislation.

{mosads}The policies include making it easier to build infrastructure like pipelines, better training a workforce for energy jobs and improving accountability in regulatory agencies, said House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and energy and power subcommittee chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.)

“Today’s energy policies are lagging far behind and are better suited for the gas lines in the 1970s than this new era of abundance,” the leaders said. “We need policies that meet today’s needs and are focused on the future, and that starts with building the Architecture of Abundance

Read more here.

PREPARED TO VETO: With the House expected to vote this week to approve the Senate’s Keystone XL bill, President Obama is preparing the biggest veto of his career.

The veto, first threatened in January and later reiterated, would be the first since 2010 and only the third of his presidency.

Environmentalists and Keystone opponents expect the veto to come with little fanfare, but they know that they’ll still have to lobby Obama to reject the pipeline.

He’s unlikely to follow presidents like Bill Clinton, who brought a brass band to the Rose Garden to veto a bill, or George W. Bush, who posed for photos of families to veto a bill to ease embryonic stem-cell research.

For Republicans, the rejection of the bill to approve Keystone will help cement Obama’s legacy of obstructionism and opposition to job-creating policies.

Read more on what to expect from Obama’s veto here.

ON TAP TUESDAY I: The House Rules Committee will meet Tuesday for a procedural vote on the Senate’s bill to Keystone XL pipeline, which includes some amendments from the House bill passed last month.

ON TAP TUESDAY II: The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) will continue its annual Energy Innovation Summit Tuesday. The day’s events include speeches by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), ARPA-E Director Ellen Williams and Brian Deese, the current deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and an incoming adviser to President Obama on climate.

Rest of Tuesday’s agenda …

The Electric Drive Transportation Association will start its Electric Drive Congress Tuesday. It will feature events from Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), as well as events featuring Energy Department officials and private sector leaders.

The National Academy of Sciences will release research Tuesday on climate intervention strategies like carbon removal.

NEWS BITES:

A visit from the FBI … The FBI has been visiting and contacting activists who protest development of Canada’s oil sands and the Keystone XL pipeline meant to carry the oil, the Canadian Press reports.

“They appear to be interested in actions around the tarsands and the Keystone XL pipeline,” Larry Hildes told the Canadian Press.

FBI investigators aren’t saying much, but the protesters haven’t been charged with crimes.

One investigator said the contact is based on Deep Green Resistance, a radical environmental group with which many of the protesters disagree.

Biodiesel … A bipartisan group of 32 Senators wrote to the Environmental Protection Agency Monday to push it to issue the 2014 biodiesel blending mandate, which is 15 months late.

“The recent delay has only compounded the effects from the November 2013 [renewable fuel standard proposed rule which did not adequately reflect biodiesel production levels. These actions continue to create tremendous uncertainty and hardship for the U.S. biodiesel industry and its thousands of employees,” they wrote.

The senators, led by Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), cited National Biodiesel Board statistics that nearly eight in 10 biodiesel producers have scaled back production because of the proposal to keep the 2014 blending mandate at the 2013 level.

AROUND THE WEB:

A federal judge dismissed a coal industry lawsuit that accused the Tennessee Valley Authority of not properly evaluating the environmental impact of switching a western Kentucky coal-fired power plant to natural gas, the Associated Press reports.

Boston has so much snow that Mayor Martin Walsh is considering dumping it in Boston Harbor, an action that’s usually illegal, the Boston Herald reports.

Thousands marched in Oakland, Calif., this weekend to urge California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) to ban fracking, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

– Poll: Most Hispanics concerned about climate change
– Feds launch $2M bid to save monarch butterflies
– GOP plans for ‘era of abundance‘ in energy
– White House to GOP: Administration followed law for flood order
– Oil industry slams ‘restrictive’ offshore drilling plan
– House GOP to unveil energy policy agenda
– Liberal group: Higher leasing fees would help coal country
– Pentagon has ‘no objection’ to Keystone
– Obama prepares for divisive veto