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BIPARTISAN SENATE MOVES ON NUCLEAR: The Environment and Public Works Committee wants to make the U.S. the leading global developer and exporter of advanced nuclear reactor technologies, passing this morning the bipartisan ADVANCE Act to generate more civil nuclear diplomacy around the world.
What’s in the bill: A big emphasis on exports. The bill directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to “coordinate” all its work on nuclear reactor import and export licensing and to involve itself more in the development of civil nuclear programs and standards in other countries.
It would also create a new international initiative to be spearheaded by the Energy and Commerce Departments to “modernize civil nuclear outreach to embarking civil nuclear energy nations.”
Nuclear at home: The legislation enables the Appalachian Regional Commission to make grants to support construction of nuclear power plants at the sites of former coal plants. West Virginia opened the door to this last year by lifting a ban on nuclear plant construction.
The bill also authorizes the chairman of the NRC to appoint dozens of highly specialized staff, including reactor engineers, structural engineers, and physicists, to support NRC work and ensure that licensing work be done swiftly.
Big themes: Congress and the Biden administration are intent on outcompeting Russia for influence in global energy markets, as expressed recently by Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel. They also want to beat out the Chinese on the development and manufacture of advanced energy technologies.
The motivation is the same with this nuclear bill, as heavy hitters such as Saudi Arabia dip their toes into nuclear power: “If we as a country can become the chief technology, the chief developer, the chief innovator, of the smaller, modular reactors, we can lead the world,” Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito, lead sponsor of the bill, said this morning.
Some Markey-d opposition: Capito’s bill has wide support. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Cory Booker, and EPW Chairman Tom Carper all cosponsored it, as did a handful of Republicans. The bill passed out of committee in a 16-3 vote.
Sens. Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, and Bernie Sanders opposed the legislation. Markey had the most to say, critiquing the bill for what he saw as an ill-advised expansion of the NRC’s mandate of ensuring nuclear safety.
Authorizing the commission to promote civil nuclear technology on a global stage would blur its role as the United States’s nuclear safety agency and make Congress into “nuclear Johnny Appleseeds.”
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HOUSE GOP READY TO COME BACK FOR MORE ON PERMITTING: Leading House Republicans are upselling the debt ceiling deal’s environmental permitting reforms, which were considerably more narrow than those passed in HR 1 or otherwise sought after in permitting reform talks, but expressed that they intend to come back for more after the debt ceiling package is out of the way.
The bill codifies firm timelines for NEPA reviews and allows project developers recourse when agencies fail to meet them. It also puts page limits on environmental assessments and environmental impact statements.
“If this were just a standalone bill this would be a huge bill but to have it as part of the debt limit talks … These are major changes,” Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman, whose committee was integral to the composition and markup of HR 1, told reporters on a call yesterday.
What they didn’t get in there: Language with clearer mandates for Interior to lease for oil and gas, which Majority Leader Steve Scalise said would be a priority in the future. Another is limiting judicial review under NEPA, which Westerman ID’d as a priority in the next round.
Still another item left out of the debt ceiling deal was reform to Section 401 water quality certifications under the Clean Water Act. HR 1 sought to reform the law to prevent states from using their roles as issuers of water quality certifications to withhold them for reasons unrelated to water quality, such as a prevailing opposition to a given project’s construction.
Transmission: Efforts to get something done on transmission reform, including via inclusion of the last-minute Peters-Hickenlooper BIG WIRES Act, ended up mostly fizzling out.
All that came of it was a provision directing NERC to study electric transfer capabilities between regional grids.
Rep. Garret Graves said he agreed with Democrats on the need for transmission reform but said substantial reforms were more or less out of the question from the get-go because the House had all but neglected it here to date (it was virtually absent from HR 1), and there’s no recent legislative history in the form of hearings or debate on the issue.
Doing substantial reforms in the debt ceiling deal would be “freelancing,” he said.
GRAVES SAYS THE WHITE HOUSE, NOT GOP TEAM, PUT MVP ON THE TABLE: Graves also said the White House, rather than himself or Speaker Kevin McCarthy, put the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s completion on the negotiating table as the parties worked out what to do on permitting and infrastructure.
Individual Republicans in the House and Senate are on record opposing MVP’s approval for basically giving a specific delegation a win by giving the project a veritable “most valuable pipeline” status, and the administration, although it has endorsed the pipeline’s completion, would have considerable political justification in being more cautious on MVP because it generates opposition among key allies.
All that made it somewhat surprising to see the project in the final deal.
Graves said the White House put the provision on the table and that it got him thinking “strategically” about its political ramifications.
“It now is going to be putting Democrats on record supporting basically judicial limitations on a conventional energy project,” he told reporters yesterday.
The provision also would be “taking away a carrot” to Sen. Joe Manchin and the West Virginia delegation that has been a part of permitting talks since last September. His implication was that MVP would continue to be dangled in front of Manchin and co. one way or the other as permitting reform discussions continue.
HOUSE LEADERSHIP PLANNING REINS ACT FLOOR VOTE: House leadership will bring the REINS Act, a bill designed to check executive agencies’ rulemaking authorities, to the floor within weeks for a vote, Scalise said yesterday.
The legislation, which would subject all new “major” rulemakings to congressional approval, is getting a second life after being introduced during the previous Congress.
Scalise tied the bill to the permitting reform theme and said it would be a part of the conference’s post-debt ceiling effort to reduce bureaucracy and inflation.
Some places where it might be relevant: Gas stoves, methane regulations, auto emissions.
EQUINOR GIVES ALL-CLEAR IN PIPELINE SECURITY CHECKS: The head of security for Europe’s largest gas supplier, Equinor, gave the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines the all-clear after last year’s explosions, though she warned in an interview about ongoing threats to Western energy infrastructure.
“It’s not gone. What happened with Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 is a very clear reminder of how far some people are willing to go,” Equinor head of security, safety and sustainability Jannicke Nilsson told Reuters.
Equinor has carried out its own investigation into the blasts alongside Swedish, Danish, and German authorities. The gas supplier has been tasked with identifying any ongoing threats to either pipeline in wake of the September explosions, which Nilsson said they did not find.
“We did find the things that we wanted to check, and when we checked it, it was OK,” she said.
DELTA FACES PROPOSED CLASS ACTION SUIT OVER CARBON-NEUTRAL CLAIMS: Delta Airlines is facing a proposed class action lawsuit over its attempt to brand itself as a “carbon-neutral” air carrier and its claim that it is “the world’s first carbon-neutral airline,” according to a new complaint filed at a federal court in California.
The complaint, filed on behalf of a state resident, accuses Delta of violating state consumer protection laws, as well as federal laws that shield consumers from unfair or fraudulent business practices in its attempt to play up its emissions-cutting bona fides.
Delta, like many other global airlines, has committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Once filed, a class action lawsuit can take years to reach the courtroom, since a judge must first certify that a large enough group of plaintiffs have enough in common to proceed. Read more from Reuters here.
The Rundown
Washington Post How a fossil fuel pipeline helped grease the debt ceiling deal
Bloomberg One more thing moving from California to Texas: wildfire risk
New York Times Testing New York apartments: How dirty is that gas stove, really?
