EIA Releases Analysis of Bingaman CES Proposal

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) has released an updated analysis of the Clean Energy Standard bill, S. 2146, recently introduced by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM). According to EIA, the legislation would alter the Nation's current generation mix, significantly reducing the role of coal-fired generation, while increasing the role of nuclear, naatural gas, and non-hydropower renewable technologies. Coal-fired generation falls to 25 percent below the reference case in 2025 and 54 percent below that level in 2035. The analysis indicates that nuclear generation increases substantially, with more than 80 gigawatts of capacity added by 2035, compared to less than a 10 gigawatt increase under the reference case. A copy of the full analysis can be found by clicking this link.

Washington Recap (Week of April 23)

Overview

Senate partisans figured out how to work together for at least one week and passed two bills with generally bi-partisan support: a measure overhauling (and perhaps saving) the U.S. Postal Service and a second extending the Violence Against Women Act. House Members were somewhat more partisan while focusing on a series of bills designed to address the increasing threat of cyber attack against U.S. government agency and private sector information networks; the main divide in the lower chamber involved differences of opinion over how much government oversight and regulation of the internet was necessary to prevent a potentially crippling attack.

By the end of the week, the House gave its approval to all of the measures produced by various Committees over the past few weeks and months, including a controversial plan from the House Intelligence Committee called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) that was attacked from civil libertarians as allowing too much government surveillance of the internet (notwithstanding a series of amendments adopted to the bill that were designed to address those complaints). Others, including most Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee, argued that CISPA, which primarily relies on more robust information sharing between the government and the private sector on the nature of cyber threats and existing regulatory structures and authorities to combat those threats, is a poor substitute for a more robust regulatory program that should be administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Ultimately, the House easily passed the measure 248-168 with 140 Democrats and 28 Republicans voting no.

In combination with other bills passed by the House last week – dealing with federal information technology systems, advance networking and information technology R&D and cyber security technical standards development – the ball on cyber legislation has been passed to the Senate, which so far has been deadlocked in a debate between an almost equal number of supporters of competing information sharing and top-down regulatory approaches. While the two sides are said to be talking, there has been no word from the leadership as to when a floor debate might be scheduled. Both the House and Senate will be in recess this week.

In Committee action, the House and Senate Appropriations panels completed action on their respective FY ’13 Energy and Water Development Appropriation bills, clearing the measures for action in both chambers; as such, the bill is the first of 12 regular appropriation bills in a position for floor action. Of interest, both panels rejected the Administration’s suggestion that Congress reinstate the utility fee (originally enacted in 1992 and expired in 2007) to raise additional funds for the decontamination and decommissioning of old government uranium enrichment facilities used for both commercial and defense programs. In an area of disagreement, the House Committee approved the recommendation of its Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Frelinghuysen, that $25 million should be spent for the continued review of the DOE license application for Yucca Mountain, while the Senate panel approved a recommendation of it’s Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Feinstein (D-CA), that DOE receive limited Nuclear Waste Fund monies to begin a consent-based program for the siting, licensing and operation of a centralized interim storage facility or facilities. During the Committee action last week, Senator Feinstein indicated that the provision, based on the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Americas Nuclear Future (BRC), had the support of Senators Alexander (R-TN), Bingaman (D-NM) and Murkowski (R-AK). According to Senator Feinstein, the four members are continuing a joint effort to develop legislation encompassing the full range of BRC recommendations and she expects that a bill will be introduced and referred to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in the next few weeks.

We close with two short takes.

• House Energy and Commerce Republicans sent a letter to NRC Chairman Jaczko last Friday, asking him to provide them with information concerning the standards and internal procedures that apply to Commission level offices, including the Office of the Chairman, to ensure that the agency self imposes the same prohibition against the creastion of a "chilled work environment" as it imposes on agency licensees. Citing the importance of a safety conscious work environment, the Members suggested that Jaczko's actions as reported by his colleagues, an agency Inspector General report and a report of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, contradict the Commission's safety practices.     
• Last Thursday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resouces Committee held a hearing, at the urging of New England Senators, on "Weather-Related Electrical Outages" -- a hearing that focused almost exclusively on last October's early snow storm and its aftermath.       

Washington Recap (Week of April 16)

Overview

As anticipated, Members of the House and Senate marked their return from a two-week spring recess by casting generally partisan votes on tax bills having no chance of enactment, but consistent with the fall election themes of the two parties. The House bill providing a tax cut for small business passed, but will not see action in the Senate; the Senate bill, instituting the so-called Buffett rule, achieved a majority vote, but fell short of the 60 needed to cut off a Republican filibuster.

Perhaps the most significant events on the Senate floor last week of interest to the energy community were the speeches given by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in support of the re-nomination of current Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Kristine Svinicki (whose term expires on June 30). McConnell, on Wednesday, decried the fact that the White House had yet to formally submit her paperwork, even though reviews and clearances were completed months ago, indicating his view that the only possible reason for the delay “is the fact that she had the courage to blow the whistle on the commission’s chairman, Gregory Jaczko, a guy whose temper and condescension toward subordinates – particularly women – nearly cost him his job.” When queried later on Wednesday about McConnell’s charge, White House spokesmen said that the President would shortly be sending Svinicki’s nomination papers to the Senate. Several stories late in the week indicated that Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) was opposed to Svinicki’s re-nomination, as are Majority Leader Reid and his fellow Nevadan, Dean Heller. Boxer, Reid and Heller’s opposition is said to be rooted in Svinicki’s support for the continued review of Yucca Mountain as a potential used nuclear fuel repository and testimony she gave at her original confirmation hearing about her previous work at DOE in relation to the project. Reid and Boxer’s spokesmen also indicated that the Senators had concerns about unspecified votes Svinicki has taken that show, as Boxer’s staff put it “she’s bad on safety.” Given that Boxer’s EPW committee has jurisdiction over the nomination once the paperwork is submitted and that Reid will need to schedule floor time for the nomination, this story will stay at a high boil over the next few weeks.

In Committee action, the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Frelinghuysen, marked up his FY ’13 bill and again rebuffed the Administration’s suggestion that Congress reinstate the utility fee (originally enacted in 1992 and expired in 2007) to raise additional funds for the decontamination and decommissioning of old government uranium enrichment facilities used for both commercial and defense programs. Frelinghuysen’s panel added $25 million for the continued review of the DOE license application for Yucca Mountain, even though the NRC has halted the process and DOE has shuttered the project. The bill, scheduled for review by the full House Appropriations panel this week, also grants DOE access to $5 million to review requests from communities that have expressed interest in hosting a used fuel facility, but further action is barred absent approval from Congress.

In other Committee news, the House Homeland Security Committee joined several others in developing legislation dealing with cyber security that will be the subject of floor action during this self-declared “cyber week” in the House of Representatives. The Homeland Security panel’s bill underwent significant changes during the mark-up process and generally creates an information sharing and advisory role for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that will guide both the private sector and regulators of jurisdiction (such as FERC, NERC and the NRC) in securing cyber systems; earlier versions granted more regulatory power to the agency. The bill will be one of five measures the Republican leadership intends to bring to the floor at the end of the week; others include the information-sharing proposal from the House Intelligence Committee discussed in last week’s update, two research measures from the House Science Committee and a proposal outlining steps federal civilian agencies need to take to protect their networks. Electric-sector specific legislation, such as the GRID Act from the last Congress, is still being examined in the House Energy and Commerce Committee and will not become an official part of this week’s debate. 

In agency action, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) voted 4-1 last week in approving final “entity definitions” that will determine which market participants are required to register with the agency as “swap dealers” and “major swap participants.” While the final rule, said to be close to 400-pages long, has not yet been published in the Federal Register, many utilities are cautiously optimistic that this action represents a significant improvement over the situation they faced when the proposed rules were first issued in December of 2010 and feel more comfortable that they will most likely be classified as an end user and exempt from regulation. Among the major changes is the establishment of at least a $3 billion “de minimis” level of activity, below which an entity is not required to register (an initial phase-in period will use an even higher de minimis level of $8 billion); the proposed rule set this level at $100 million. The final rule will also provide a clarification of the difference between a “dealer” and a “hedger” and include language that excludes certain transactions entered into for the purpose of hedging a physical position from the definition of swap dealing.

Three short takes this week:

• Republican leaders of the House Energy and Commere Committee wrote yet another letter to OMB Director Jacob Lew, requesting the Administration to release a full economic analyusis of the EPA MATS rulemaking. The members cited a recent report from NERA Economic Consulting estimating the net employment impact of the rule in 2015 to be a loss in income equivalent to 180,000 full-time jobs inclusive of any job gains associated with installing retrofits and building new power plants.
• The House adopted an amendment offered by Rep. McKinley (R-WV) that would establish a state-based regulatory program, similar to the so-called Subtitle D municipal waste regulatory program, for coal combustion residuals (CCR). The amendment, identical to legislation passed earlier this Congress, was attached to a House bill providing yet another temporary extension to the current surface transporation program.
• The EPA issued new standards regulating air emissions from fracking operations. The regulations, which drew guarded initial praise from both the American Petroleum Industry (API) and several environmental groups, will require gas drilling operations to capture methane and other emissions beginning in 2015.