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Quick fix
— House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reversed her commitment to move the Democrats’ reconciliation package and the bipartisan infrastructure bill forward together, with a House vote on infrastructure looming this week.
— FERC's four commissioners face the Senate Energy Committee today as the agency hopes to expand environmental justice and climate considerations into its work despite GOP criticism that it's going too far.
— Ford and SK Innovation are partnering up to invest over $11 billion into EV technology as the fate of a major U.S. expansion for the sector hangs in the balance.
HAPPY TUESDAY! I’m your host, Matthew Choi. Lizzie McGuire, you are a trivia repeater! I realized that yesterday’s trivia was already used back in 2020 under Kelsey Tamborrino. But congrats to LCV’s Tiernan Sittenfeld for knowing Ina Garten was formerly a staffer in the White House Office of Management and Budget and later the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. For today: What mosque has the world’s tallest minaret? Send your tips and trivia answers to [email protected]. Find me on Twitter @matthewchoi2018.
Check out the POLITICO Energy podcast — all the energy and environmental politics and policy news you need to start your day, in just five minutes. Listen and subscribe for free at politico.com/energy-podcast. On today's episode: Where do solar panels really come from?
Driving the day
INSIDE THE HUDDLE: The Democratic factions tug-of-warring on the party’s two major legislative packages issued stark signals on Monday. Key progressives vowed in an op-ed that they would vote on the infrastructure bill only after the reconciliation package is passed. Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed the urgency of getting the infrastructure bill passed this week when surface transportation authorization runs out — essentially acknowledging the realpolitik and reversing on her previous commitment that the two packages must pass together.
Moderates stood firm that it’s “time to send the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill to the President’s desk,” and were less than thrilled about any progressive ultimata to force through their reconciliation package or delay the infrastructure bill. "Delaying the bill isn't going to make us any more or less likely to support reconciliation," Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) said during a caucus huddle Monday. "I am a legislator, not a lemming." Meanwhile, Senate Energy Chair Joe Manchin appeared unimpressed with any grandstanding, saying “I don’t do really good on threats.”
Despite any absolutist language, both sides are privately starting to give way to reach a middle ground, POLITICO's Sarah Ferris and Heather Caygle report. Party leaders are hoping for some kind of framework of options that would get a green light from Manchin and fellow moderate Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) that they could present to progressives to show they don't need to hold the infrastructure bill hostage to get their reconciliation priorities done. But progressives want precise details on climate and other key issues in that framework, and Democrats want a number from the Senate centrists on how big they're willing to go.
Several top Democrats are also hoping for President Joe Biden to come out and press the need to pass the infrastructure bill Thursday, Sarah and Heather report. Biden met with Pelosi ahead of the caucus huddle Monday evening, but wouldn’t publicly give a forceful deadline for passing the legislation.
“It may not be by the end of the week,” he told reporters when asked about passing the two packages. “But as long as we're still alive, we got three things to do: the debt ceiling, the continuing resolution, and the two pieces of legislation. If we do that, the country is going to be in great shape.”
On the Hill
FERC FACES THE SENATE: FERC’s four commissioners will be in the proverbial hot seats with the Senate Energy Committee today in an oversight hearing on the commission’s jurisdiction. FERC Chair Rich Glick is advocating for the commission to consider environmental justice and climate issues more when evaluating pipeline project applications, but the top Republican on the committee John Barrasso accused the commission of dragging its feet on approving natural gas projects.
Glick and Democratic Commissioner Allison Clements wrote to Barrasso on Monday defending the need for more scrutiny into the climate impact of pipelines, particularly after the D.C. Circuit appeals court found that the commission wasn’t being stringent enough in its reviews. “Over the last several years, I became increasingly concerned that the Commission majority often cut corners in a manner that fell short of the Commission’s obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Natural Gas Act (NGA),” Glick wrote, adding that such actions could jeopardize projects by potentially subjecting them to judicial scrutiny. Catherine Morehouse has more for Pros.
Industry Intel
THE KOREAN-AMERICAN CHARGE UP: As Congress remains deadlocked on legislation that could support a major expansion of the electric vehicle sector in the U.S., Ford and South Korea’s SK Innovation are partnering up for an $11.4 billion EV investment that the automaker says will be its largest manufacturing investment ever.
The two companies will open a 3,600 acre campus in Tennessee called Blue Oval City for battery manufacturing, as well as two plants in central Kentucky with the combined capacity to produced 129 gigawatts a year — enough to power over a million EVs. The investments are expected to create over 10,000 jobs in the two regions. Ford anticipates state incentives for worker training, but says it’ll be completely unreliant on any federal assistance (though if Congress manages to come through with EV charging funding that the company could touch, it would be heartily welcomed).
The plants are expected to start production in 2025 and will try to avoid disruptions in the global supply chain, using methods including battery recycling and aiming to keep operations carbon neutral and zero waste. Lorraine Woellert has more on the announcement for Pros.
Around the Agencies
PREPPING FINANCE FOR THE WORST: Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard is warning that the U.S. central bank is falling behind its global peers in preparing the American financial industry for climate change. “We need to catch up because of course we know the nature of climate change is such that” there could be a wide range of indirect effects, she said at a conference hosted by the National Association for Business Economics.
Brainard is a favorite among progressives to succeed Jerome Powell as Fed chair, Pro’s Victoria Guida reports. Biden has faced calls from progressive lawmakers to nix Powell for not pushing enough on climate issues. The Trump-appointed Fed chair has acknowledged that the financial system faces “profound challenges” due to climate change and told the Senate Banking Committee back in July that the central bank was considering requiring banks to test their vulnerabilities to climate change. Read more from Victoria.
CROSS PACIFIC SOLAR SPAR: China and the U.S. went head to head on Monday over a WTO decision to keep tariffs on solar products from China, Taiwan and other suppliers. The tariffs were implemented under former President Donald Trump in 2018. A Chinese official accused the WTO dispute settlement panel of a gross misreading of legal requirements for imposing safeguard import restrictions, as well as a major misunderstanding of a panel's proper role in examining trade remedy investigations, a Geneva official said.
The United States rebutted China’s remarks during the Monday dispute settlement meeting by noting its victory “came at a very high cost.” “A thriving U.S. industry was essentially crushed by China’s massive non-market excess capacity – and this formed the factual basis for the U.S. safeguard action,” the U.S. delegate said, according to comments released by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office in Geneva. “So while we welcome the panel report findings, this dispute demonstrates, perversely, that WTO rules do not effectively constrain China’s damaging non-market behavior.”
The tariffs that Trump imposed are set to expire in February unless Biden agrees to a domestic industry request to extend them for another four years. That decision is expected sometime after the U.S. International Trade Commission delivers its recommendations later this year.
IDA’S AFTERMATH: The New Orleans City Council wants FERC to investigate whether utility Entergy was in violation of any federal reliability standards, following the devastating outages that plagued the city for days earlier this month following Hurricane Ida.
Over 200,000 customers lost power during and after the storm following “catastrophic damage” to Entergy’s transmission system as the heat index climbed above 100 degrees. The outages lasted for over a week in some places, creating a “dire” situation for the city’s residents, according to the council, which also acts as the local utility regulator.
Council members want FERC and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation to look into whether the transmission failures were the result of imprudent maintenance by the utility.
Entergy has been under increased scrutiny from the city council since the storm, and last week City Council President Helena Moreno proposed the city consider taking ownership of the utility. Entergy did not respond to a request for comment.
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS DEB HAALAND? The Interior Secretary is out in sunny San Diego today to further tout the bipartisan infrastructure deal as well as ongoing conservation efforts. She’ll meet with Tribal leaders and federal firefighters, as well as celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with community partners, youth and DOI staffers. She’ll also visit national wildlife refuges and discuss the America the Beautiful initiative, which aims to conserve 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.
In the States
PENN YEET: The contentious PennEast pipeline project in New Jersey is dead. The pipeline’s developers formally announced they’re abandoning the effort on Monday following years of legal challenges and resistance from state and local leaders over its environmental impact, eminent domain authority and consumer need. The developers hinted at axing the project last week when they said further land purchases in New Jersey were being indefinitely suspended.
“For the last four years, my Administration has fought back against the unnecessary construction of the PennEast Pipeline, which was wrong for New Jersey and would have destroyed acres of New Jersey’s conserved land and threatened species," Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement. Ry Rivard with Pro’s New Jersey team took a dive into the project’s history and ultimate demise.
Beyond the Beltway
THE DIVESTMENT DOMINOES: Harvard University, the higher learning institution with the richest endowment in the United States, announced this month that it would phase out its current fossil fuel holdings without plans to make future investments in the industry, marking the climax of a long pressure campaign. A few other universities have already followed suit and divestment proponent are hoping to gain further momentum ahead of the UN climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.
Climate activists are going after the 20 largest American college and university endowments, valued at more than $322 billion, pushing them to divest from fossil fuels. It’s a campaign coming from both inside and outside the institutions, with faculty and students demanding the shift. So far, about 58 percent of those endowment dollars are in some process of quitting fossil fuels, POLITICO’s Jordan Wolman reports. But there are still holdouts who argue that divestment isn’t an effective way to combat climate change. Read more from Jordan here.
RELATED: The National Academy of Medicine launched the Action Collaborative on Decarbonizing the U.S. Health Sector, a public-private partnership to reduce the health sector's emissions and enhance its sustainability. The health care system is responsible for about 8.5 percent of the country's carbon emissions, according to the academy.
The Grid
— “EU lawmakers reject attempts to block green investment rules,” via Reuters.
— “Climate is the kingmaker in German coalition-building,” via POLITICO.
— “South Africa pledges more ambitious climate targets,” via The Associated Press.
— “Why the World Started Fighting About Climate Change Every Year,” via Bloomberg.
— “Small islands caught between tourism economy, climate change,” via The Associated Press.
— “VW to pay $1.5 million to settle New Hampshire, Montana diesel claims,” via Reuters.
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