Energy & Environment — Biden defends timing of oil reserve release

President Biden has officially announced the final release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Meanwhile, the lack of “forever chemicals” testing could be taking its toll, and Americans could face new heating price hikes this winter. 

This is Overnight Energy & Environment, your source for the latest news focused on energy, the environment and beyond. For The Hill, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk. Someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here. 

Biden confirms release of 15M reserve barrels

President Biden on Wednesday confirmed the further release of 15 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), weeks after the OPEC+ bloc of nations announced it would cut production. 

• The president touted decreases in gas prices from the summer peak, but said prices are “not falling fast enough,” adding that the previously-announced drawdown would continue into December and that it would continue in the months ahead “if needed.” 
  
• “This allows us to move quickly to prevent oil price spikes and respond to international events,” the president said. White House officials previously confirmed the release Tuesday evening, although it was part of previously-scheduled releases. 

Biden rejected criticism that the release politically motivated as the White House aims to bring down gas prices with just a few weeks until the midterm elections.

“It’s not politically motivated at all,” Biden told reporters. “It’s motivated to make sure I continue to push on what I’ve been pushing on, and that’s making sure there’s enough oil that’s being pumped by the companies so that we have the ability to be able to produce enough gas that we need here at home, and at the same time keep moving in a direction of providing for alternative energy,” he continued.

What else? Biden also called for “responsibly increas[ing] American oil production without delaying or deferring our transition to clean energy.” He noted that domestic oil production is around 12 million barrels per day and that the U.S. continues to export more petroleum products than it imports. 

Biden then announced plans for the government to purchase oil to refill the SPR once it falls to about $70 per barrel with a goal of assuaging oil company fears of being unable to sell oil at competitive prices. 

And: He also called for Congress to pass energy permitting reform, invoking a major priority of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who backed the administration’s signature Inflation Reduction Act in exchange for a vote on such a reform bill. The bill, initially part of must-pass government stopgap funding, was later removed amid lack of support from both parties. 

• Biden rejected criticism that the release politically motivated as the White House aims to bring down gas prices with just a few weeks until the midterm elections. 
  
• “It’s not politically motivated at all,” Biden told reporters. “It’s motivated to make sure I continue to push on what I’ve been pushing on, and that’s making sure there’s enough oil that’s being pumped by the companies so that we have the ability to be able to produce enough gas that we need here at home, and at the same time keep moving in a direction of providing for alternative energy,” he continued. 

Read more about Biden’s remarks here and his comments on the political implications here. 

Lack of testing could leave most victims in the dark 

Sandy Wynn-Stelt had thought her Michigan home was across the street from a Christmas tree farm, but she said in a lawsuit settled earlier this year that it was actually a toxic dump that contaminated her water. 

In 2017, the state’s Department of Environmental Quality came to Wynn-Stelt’s house to test her water, a test she believed at the time to be random. The test, however, turned up high levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals” because they tend to linger in the environment and human bodies instead of breaking down. 

The class of chemicals, of which there are thousands, have been linked to kidney and testicular cancer, as well as thyroid disease. 

When Wynn-Stelt was diagnosed with thyroid cancer last year, she said she had already known she had high levels of PFAS in her blood.  

“Was I surprised in the moment? Yes. Was I surprised overall that I developed cancer from drinking Scotchgard from the tap, no,” she said, referencing the name of a stain-repellant product made with PFAS. 

However, at least Wynn-Stelt was able to get testing and stopped drinking the contaminated water. She fears that other people may be in a similar situation and not even know it.

That’s just scratching the surface: Research shows that people all around the country are being impacted by PFAS contamination and may not even know it.  

• The PFAS Project Lab, an organization that researches the chemicals, has identified nearly 1,800 “known” sites of confirmed PFAS contamination.  
  
• But a recent study affiliated with the lab found more than 30 times as many sites — 57,000 of them — that are presumably contaminated but haven’t been officially identified.
  
• Study author Alissa Cordner said that the large disparity between sites that have been officially identified and those that have not means that a significant number of communities are probably completely unaware of the effects the chemicals are having on their lives.  

Read more about the study here.

Expect to pay more for winter utilities

Americans are staring down the nose at astronomical energy prices in the coming winter months, driven by a combination of colder-than-average temperatures and price hikes amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  

But these elevated costs will not hit regions of the country evenly, and they could have a serious impact on lower- and middle-income families nationwide whose paychecks are already getting eaten up by inflation.   

• Data released by the Labor Department last week showed that prices increased for the second consecutive month. The same report showed the index for natural gas increased by 2.9 percent, while the gasoline index declined by 4.9 percent month over month.  
  
• Gasoline prices rose 18.2 percent over the past 12 months, while the index for energy services increased by 19.8 percent.   

But how does this translate to your energy bill?   

The Labor Department’s data came after a separate report warned of a sharp rise in energy costs this winter, after average heating expenses across all fuel types increased by 17 percent last winter to $1,025.  

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected another spike in costs is due to two factors: increased fuel costs and colder-than-average temperatures.

In the coming winter, the EIA projects natural gas costs will increase the most among fuel sources, by about 28 percent. Heating oil costs are projected to spike almost as much, about 27 percent, followed by electricity at 10 percent and propane at
5 percent. 

• The EIA’s base scenario shows from October 2022 to March 2023 Americans who heat their homes with natural gas can expect to pay $931 seasonally, while the average expenditure for those whose homes are heated by heating oil are projected at $2,354.  
  
• A base-case scenario winter could see electricity seasonal costs reaching an average of $1,359 and average propane costs hitting $1,668.  

Meanwhile, in a scenario where winter is 10 percent colder than 2021-2022, average household expenditures for natural gas will increase 51 percent, compared to 37 percent for heating oil, 20 percent for electricity and 36 percent for propane.  

Read more from Zack and The Hill’s Adam Barnes here. 

Carbon emission rose more slowly in 2022: analysis

Carbon emissions rose at a significantly slower pace this year than the year before, due largely to increased deployment of renewable energy, according to an analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA). 

Emissions for 2022 are poised to increase about 300 million metric tons, compared to close to 2 billion metric tons last year, according to the IEA. The 2021 increase was largely driven by the rollback of COVID-19-related restrictions and the recovery of the economy.

The lack of this sudden burst of activity in 2022 means emissions were always poised to grow by less in 2022, but without the increased use of renewables and electric vehicles, they would have jumped by closer to 1 billion metric tons, according to the IEA. 

Solar and wind power drove the growth in renewables this year, comprising a record increase of about 700 terawatt-hours and preventing an increase of more than
600 million metric tons of carbon. Hydropower also increased this year, comprising about 20 percent of renewable growth despite an increase in drought conditions in several regions. 

The trajectory of carbon emissions, the primary driver of climate change, had been slowly improving for years before the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2021 return to activity. 

Another major contributing factor is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February and the resulting sanctions on Russian natural gas. 

“The encouraging news is that solar and wind are filling much of the gap, with the uptick in coal appearing to be relatively small and temporary,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement. “This means that CO2 emissions are growing far less quickly this year than some people feared — and that policy actions by governments are driving real structural changes in the energy economy. Those changes are set to accelerate thanks to the major clean energy policy plans that have advanced around the world in recent months.” 

Read more about the analysis here. 

Biden announces $2.8B for EV battery production 

The White House on Wednesday outlined nearly $3 billion in investments to boost domestic battery manufacturing, which officials said will help meet the need for critical supplies as the country ramps up electric vehicle (EV) production. 

Biden and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced the $2.8 billion worth of grants through the bipartisan infrastructure law passed last year at a White House event. The funding will be spread across 20 different companies for projects in at least 12 states. A senior administration official said the funding will lead to 8,000 new jobs, 5,000 of which are expected to be permanent. 

The announcement focused on two key efforts for Biden since taking office:

• Strengthening supply chains
• Promoting the transition to a more climate-friendly economy. 

The investments will allow U.S. manufacturers to process critical minerals like lithium and nickel that are used in battery production, guarding against supply chain disruptions, administration officials said. Those materials are particularly important in the production of electric vehicle batteries, as Biden has called for half of all vehicles to be electric by 2030. 

“This market transformation is expected to increase demand for critical minerals such as lithium and graphite used in EV batteries,” the White House said in a fact sheet. “Today’s announcements demonstrate how the United States is poised to meet this challenge while growing our economy and creating high-quality union jobs in the battery supply chain.” 

Read more from The Hill’s Brett Samuels. 

WHAT WE’RE READING

• Missouri school to close following report of radioactive contamination (STLToday) 
• Biden’s ‘energy whisperer’ balances climate agenda, rising gas prices (The Washington Post) 
• Democrats passed a huge climate bill. Now they’re talking oil. (Politico) 
• Seattle air quality among worst in world (The Seattle Times) 
• The beef industry is flattening the Amazon, even when companies tell you it’s not. (Vox)

🍃 Lighter click: Convenient is right

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.