WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Thursday, readers! Callie and Maydeen kick things off today by diving into the latest Biden administration energy standards targeted by Republicans in Congress, as the House voted to undo two today.
Keep reading to learn more about the pathway the Trump administration has laid for companies and manufacturers looking to work around Clean Air Act emissions and pollution regulations.
Plus, Just Stop Oil’s public campaign against the fossil fuel industry is coming to an end. Their last public protest is scheduled to take place in London towards the end of next month.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner energy and environment writers Callie Patteson (@CalliePatteson) and Maydeen Merino (@MaydeenMerino). Email cpatteson@washingtonexaminer dot com or mmerino@washingtonexaminer dot com for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
HOUSE VOTES TO REVERSE FRIDGE AND FREEZER EFFICIENCY STANDARDS: The House today voted to undo two of the Energy Department’s efficiency standards for commercial refrigerators and freezer.
House lawmakers voted 214 to 193 to overturn the Energy Department’s standards for commercial refrigerators, freezers, and refrigerator-freezers, and 203 to 182 to undo the standards for walk-in coolers and freezers. Five Democrats voted for the first resolution, and six voted for the second.
Specifically, the two rules set stringent energy standards on new commercial refrigerators, freezers, refrigerator-freezers, walk-in coolers, and walk-in freezers. Both rules were finalized toward the end of the Biden administration.
Republicans have criticized Democrats for pushing new and stringent energy efficiency standards, arguing they would raise costs and limit consumer choices for consumers.
In recent weeks, GOP lawmakers have used the Congressional Review Act to reverse many of the Biden administration’s energy regulations, including the two standards reversed today. The CRA allows lawmakers to bypass the filibuster and take a simple majority vote in both chambers to cancel rules.
The Senate will need to vote to undo the regulations to then send it to President Donald Trump’s desk to sign.
Read more from Maydeen here.
CLEAN AIR ACT WORKAROUND…JUST EMAIL THE EPA: The Environmental Protection Agency has opened up a pathway for fossil-fuel powered facilities to get around the Clean Air Act and restrictions on emissions of greenhouse gasses, toxic chemicals, and other pollutants.
The details: In a notice issued Monday, the EPA has given fossil fuel companies one week to request a Clean Air Act exemption from the president. The agency, headed by administrator Lee Zeldin, has pointed to an obscure provision from within the Clean Air Act that gives the president the power to exempt certain polluters from emissions rules based on the technology used and if “it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so.”
Companies have until March 31 to request an exemption for up to two years, with the possibility for renewing available. All these companies have to do is send an email to [email protected], identifying which emissions standards they wish to be exempt from and how long, the facilities impacted by the rules, and a justification to support their request. President Donald Trump is expected to make the final decision “on the merits,” the EPA said.
Not a shock: The exemption pathway comes as no surprise given the Trump administration’s continued support for the oil and gas industry, as well as coal. Zeldin himself has also said he would allow coal-fired plants to request exemptions over EPA regulations targeting coal ash, according to the New York Times.
While the EPA is expected to fully walk back the majority of these emissions and pollution rules, it will have to do so through a long process that involves rewriting the text as well as a public comment and review period. In the meantime, granting exemptions would allow the agency to deliver on the Trump administration’s agenda without having to wait months or even years.
Some reaction: The opportunity to work around the Clean Air Act has been welcomed by industry groups, with the National Association of Manufacturers telling the New York Times that manufacturers have been “negatively impacted by these regulations.”
Critics and environmentalist groups, however, are in an outrage. Environmental Defense Fund’s General Counsel Vickie Patton called the move an “extreme and improper abuse” of the Clean Air Act and pollution rules that have relied on the law.
“This is a Trump EPA-led effort to evade established limits on toxic pollution that protect millions of people across the U.S.,” Patton said in a statement, noting that EDF has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all records related to the exemption request website.
JUST STOP OIL SET TO JUST STOP: After years of disruptive protests, climate activism group Just Stop Oil is hanging up its high vis vests and putting away its orange paint, ending its campaign against the fossil fuel industry.
The details: In a statement released today, Just Stop Oil explained it would be ending its direct action protests in public but will continue to campaign in the courts, prisons, and legal systems in the United Kingdom. The group, launched in February 2022, has seen its members and activists arrested over 2,000 times, with dozens of individuals having spent time in prison over their disruptive demonstrations.
“So it is the end of soup on Van Goghs, cornstarch on Stonehenge and slow marching in the streets,” the group wrote. “But it is not the end of trials, of tagging and surveillance, of fines, probation and years in prison.”
The environmentalist organization declared a win in its campaign to stop new oil and gas development, claiming Just Stop Oil succeeded in pressuring the U.K. government to declare new licenses for drilling unlawful. Last summer, the Labour government committed to not permitting any new oil and gas drilling licenses in the North Sea, as part of the country’s broader effort to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Just Stop Oil said today that its final public protest will be held in Parliament Square in London on April 26.
Most controversial protests: One of its most memorable demonstrations came in June 2024, when two protesters associated with the group were caught on video spraying Stonehenge with an orange paint powder while onlookers yelled for them to stop. The two protesters were charged with destroying or damaging an ancient protected monument and intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance.
Another notable protest happened in October 2022, when two protesters threw a can of soup on the 1888 Vincent van Gogh painting Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London. The painting itself was largely unharmed, except for damage to its frame. The activists were handed sentences of two years and 20 months respectively.
Read more from Callie here.
NUCLEAR COMEBACK ‘FAR FROM CERTAIN,’ REPORT SUGGESTS: While 2024 was seemingly the year nuclear energy saw its revival, a full comeback in the United States has yet to be guaranteed, consultancy firm ICF wrote in a new report.
The details: The report, released today, described a future nuclear renaissance as “far from certain,” saying the industry is dependent upon federal incentives, scalability, fuel accessibility, uncertainty with the technology, economic viability, public acceptance, as well as the long spans of time it takes to deliver on a project.
Zeroing in on costs: Among these challenges that ICF outlined is the size of the upfront costs for nuclear energy, compared to other alternatives. The firm found that restarting a nuclear plant (like in Three Mile Island or Palisades Nuclear Plant) could cost anywhere from $356 per kilowatt a year to $407 per kilowatt a year. Meanwhile, new nuclear facilities, including small modular reactors, could cost anywhere between $456 per kilowatt a year to $863 per kilowatt a year – roughly 50% higher than costs associated with gas-fired power plants or facilities using carbon capture technologies.
Luckily for the nuclear industry, many of these costs can be offset by high profitability, allowing operators to break even. However, the report found much of this is dependent upon the investment tax credit.
“In general, the nuclear industry moves quite slowly—as it should, given the risk involved…” ICF wrote, adding, “If tax credits expire before nuclear achieves meaningful cost reductions, it could stall this emerging industry.”
JAPAN URGED TO JUMP ON THE NUCLEAR TRAIN: The chief of the International Energy Agency is calling on Japan to join its western allies in boosting the nuclear energy industry, by reopening shuttered facilities in the country:
The details: While in Tokyo today, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol called the restart of nuclear power plants “critical” as energy demands have risen worldwide. Birol admitted that nuclear power won’t solve “all the problems” that have emerged at the intersection of energy demand and carbon emissions reduction goals. He insisted, though, that nuclear power “must play an important role.”
“I feel really bad that a country I really love, Japan, has so much idle capacity,” Birol said, according to Bloomberg. “I very much hope that soon, not only the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant, but other nuclear power plants in Japan will come back, in a safe way.”
Restart potential: The IEA chief’s remarks came one day after Birol toured the dormant Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant. The facility is the largest nuclear plant in the world, with a design capacity of nearly 8 gigawatts across six reactors. Operations at the plant have been suspended since 2011, following the Fukushima disaster.
The plant is currently owned by Tokyo Electric Power Co., which said last month that it plans to begin necessary upgrades on the facility in August 2029, according to Bloomberg. Any restart date would come some time after.
Elsewhere in the country, there are approximately 33 reactors deemed operable following the 2011 meltdown. With approximately 14 of those online, there are still more than a dozen opportunities for possible restarts, according to data from the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ASKS OIL AND BIOFUEL GROUPS TO AGREE ON BIOFUEL POLICY: The Trump administration is directing oil and biofuel groups to agree on a national biofuels policy to steer clear of any disputes amongst the two industries, Reuters reports.
Four people familiar with the matter told Reuters that the White House directive has yielded at least two bilateral meetings. One of the meetings was last week, hosted by the American Petroleum Institute with Will Hupman, API’s vice president of downstream policy, and three others who asked not to be named, the outlet said. Hupman and the other sources said they discussed issues like the size of future mandated biofuel blending volumes, exemptions for small refiners, and biofuel tax policy.
The two industry groups have previously disagreed on policies, including the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard that requires transportation fuels to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuel to help lower emissions.
“It makes it easier for (the Trump administration) to arrive at whatever number they arrive at if they are hearing from groups that have historically been at the opposite sides of this,” Hupman told Reuters.
SEN. WHITEHOUSE ADDRESSES PERMITTING REFORM EFFORTS: Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and other senators are working to “revive permitting reform,” but several obstacles remain in their way.
At a Heatmap event yesterday, Whitehouse, who is the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the chairwoman, Sen. Shelley Capito, along with Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Mike Lee and Ranking Member Sen. Martin Heinrich, is “positive in desiring to get a permanent reform bill done.”
Whitehouse noted that the four lawmakers are working on permitting reform. But there are some obstacles that could hinder their efforts, Whitehouse said, including getting Democrats to agree to permitting reform while the Trump administration is blocking congressional funds.
The Trump administration has frozen or canceled federal funding for a range of programs, including from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed by Democrats and signed by former President Joe Biden and provides hundreds of billions for clean energy technology.
Secondly, Whitehouse said, there needs to be understanding between Democrats and Republicans in Congress on what “faithful execution of the laws means.”
As an example, Whitehouse said “if we do a bipartisan permitting reform, and the only part of it that the Trump administration will implement is the fossil fuel pipelines part, then there’s no point in having a deal.”
RUNDOWN
Wall Street Journal Economic Growth Now Depends on Electricity, Not Oil
Inside Climate News Burned Homes Can Be Rebuilt More Resilient to Wildfires, but Many Homeowners Can’t Afford the Price
New York Times She Inspired Laws to Hold the Fossil Fuel Industry Accountable. Now She’s a Target.
