SENATE MOVES TOWARD VOTE ON NUCLEAR REFORM: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Thursday the Senate will consider a legislative package overhauling the nuclear sector – a notable vote, after negotiators have struggled to find a way to get the measure over the finish line.
Possible timing of the vote: The measure could come to the floor as soon as next week – and it’s likely the package will pass the upper chamber.
Now, what does this measure do? The nuclear reform legislation – negotiated between lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee – is meant to streamline the regulatory process for advanced nuclear reactors, beef up the workforce at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and require the NRC to update its mission statement.
The bill is tucked away in a measure authorizing grants for the U.S. Fire Administration and firefighter assistance programs, which passed the House last month in a 393-13 vote.
It does touch on NEPA: The measure addresses the National Environmental Policy Act – a 1970 law that requires federal agencies to assess the environmental impacts of their actions. The bill would require the NRC to streamline the NEPA review process, charging it to finish final environmental impact statements or assessments after 18 months. The bill also requires the NRC to tell Congress how it’s updating its own regulations implementing NEPA.
Turbulence on finding the right legislative vehicle: After lawmakers were able to cinch a bipartisan compromise deal between two bills – Reps. Jeff Duncan and Diana DeGette’s Atomic Energy Advancement Act and Sens. Tom Carper and Shelley Moore Capito’s Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act – members were left struggling to find a legislative vehicle to attach the bill to. Most recently, senators had tried to attach it as an amendment to a bill reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, but non-germane amendments were ultimately not accepted.
Lawmakers had tried to stick the nuclear package in the appropriation bills for fiscal 2024 – but ultimately were only able to add an extension of the Price-Anderson Act, which establishes accident liability limits for the nuclear industry in the event of an accident. There have been talks of adding the measure to the annual defense bill, but the National Defense Authorization Act isn’t expected to get done until the end of the year – and lawmakers are hoping to pass something sooner than later.
Expectations of passage? Both portions of the nuclear package have passed the lower and upper chamber during this Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support. And of course, keep in mind the entirety of the compromise package passed the House in a similar manner.
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TAKEAWAYS FROM TRUMP’S CAPITOL HILL VISIT: In a visit to Capitol Hill, former President Donald Trump began laying out some of his policy expectations for energy. One proposal that was floated: Restart oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Bloomberg reports.
“He said ‘We’ll get back to that,’” Sen. Kevin Cramer told Bloomberg following a closed-door meeting with Trump and other GOP senators. “He opened it up, and Biden closed it down, and he said when we get back we’ll get it back open.”
Under Trump, Congress had reversed a ban on energy development in the refuge in 2017, and mandated lease sales in an area that environmentalists sought to protect. The Biden administration, on the other hand, proceeded to suspend those sales during his term, and cut off more than half of the nearby National Petroleum Reserve from further exploration. Read the details here.
The conversations, however, were light on policy details: Generally, the president avoided getting into the specifics of the policies he hoped to pursue, and did not directly address his interest in repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, Daily on Energy Alum Josh Siegel reports. He also did not indicate which of the clean energy tax credits Republicans should repeal if there’s a GOP trifecta following November’s election.
What was said: A lot of campaign-style talking points – the former president criticized the administration’s regulations incentivizing the purchase of electric vehicles, and spoke about energy in the context of inflation. Read more from Politico here.
G-7 RESOLUTION ON FOSSIL FUELS: Group of Seven leaders will agree to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly, and equitable manner, accelerating actions in this critical decade,” according to a draft of a statement set to be released at the end of their meeting in Italy, according to Reuters.
The publication reports that the agreement also includes a pledge to phase out unabated coal power “during the first half of the 2030s,” as previously reported. It does, though, allow for a more lenient alternative commitment for phasing out coal in line with countries’ net-zero pathways – a provision seen as a concession to Germany and Japan, which rely more heavily on coal.
The draft statement received criticism from environmentalists, though, for allowing for continued public investment in natural gas.
UKRAINE SIGNS DEAL FOR U.S. LNG: Ukrainian energy company DTEK Group said yesterday that it inked an agreement with Venture Global to buy LNG to be shipped from Louisiana.
The companies are touting the agreement as helping Ukraine with energy security as it fights off Russia.
“With this landmark agreement, we will help bolster Ukraine’s security of natural gas supply, aid continued recovery and economic growth in the region, and further strengthen European energy security,” Mike Sabel, CEO of Venture Global, said in a statement.
Under the deal, Ukraine will purchase cargoes from Venture Global’s Plaquemines LNG facility beginning later this year through the end of 2026 to address near-term needs. Then it will buy 2 million tonnes per annum of LNG from Venture Global’s third facility, Calcasieu Pass 2 in Cameron Parish, for 20 years.
Separately, Saudi Aramco announced a deal with American developer NextDecade to purchase 1.2mn tonnes of LNG per annum for 20 years, to be exported from a yet-to-be-built facility that is expected to come online in 2030, the Financial Times reports.
NOT ALL REPUBLICANS SEE CRYPTO AS HELPFUL FOR ENERGY SECURITY: Texas Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick issued a pretty harsh criticism of the crypto industry for its massive use of energy in the state, dismissing it as a “very niche” industry.
Patrick’s comments, flagged yesterday by Heatmap, are notable given his conservative profile. We noted yesterday that Trump, once a crypto skeptic, is now advancing the argument that crypto miners help balance grid demand and improve energy security. That’s been a key part of the pro-crypto case in Texas, where part of the strategy for maintaining the grid has been relying on miners to limit consumption during periods of high demand.
But Patrick, commenting on testimony from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid operator, tweeted that crypto mining “may actually make more money selling electricity back to the grid than from their crypto mining operations.”
Why it matters: It’s interesting to see a prominent conservative sounding like bitcoin skeptic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who’s long scrutinized miners’ power consumption, at a time when pressure is increasing on Republicans to promote crypto. Industry allies are expected to spend $160 million this cycle targeting congressional proponents of added regulation, threatening Senate Democrats’ majority, Bloomberg reported today.
OPEC GOES ANOTHER ROUND VERSUS IEA: OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais once more clashed with the International Energy Agency over projections for oil demand, saying that there is no let-up on the horizon.
What he said: Al Ghais wrote in a commentary that oil demand will rise to 116 million barrels per day by 2045, with no peak in sight.
That stands in contrast with the IEA forecast earlier this week. Along with warning of a major oil glut in the years ahead, the IEA also said that demand would peak at the end of the decade.
Al Ghais criticized that forecast as a “dangerous commentary, especially for consumers, and will only lead to energy volatility on a potentially unprecedented scale.”
He said that demand is set to grow especially in the developing world, where people lack “energy basics that the developed world takes for granted, such as being able to turn on a light, cook on a clean stove or have motorized transport to move to and from work or school.”
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