Overnight Energy: Senate sends disaster relief bill to Trump | Dems seek probe into Puerto Rico utility deal | Interior proposes higher fees for popular national parks

SENATE APPROVES DISASTER RELIEF: The Senate easily cleared a disaster relief bill on Tuesday, sending the legislation to President Trump’s desk.

Senators voted 82-17 on the House-passed measure, which includes help for the response to a string of wildfires and trio of recent hurricanes.

Senators rejected an uphill bid from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to include an offset that would pay for the more than $36 billion in funding.

“[Y]ou’ll find often that it’s easy to be compassionate with someone else’s money. But it’s not only that. It’s not only compassion with someone else’s money. It’s compassion with money that doesn’t even exist, money that’s borrowed,” Paul said during a speech from the Senate floor.

The bill, which passed the House earlier this month, would provide $36.5 billion to fund hurricane relief, a flood insurance program and wildfire recovery efforts in the West.

That includes $18.7 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster relief fund, $16 billion to address national flood insurance program debt and $576.5 million for wildfire recovery efforts. It also provided $1.27 billion for disaster food assistance for Puerto Rico.

Read more here.

 

DEMS WANT A PUERTO RICO PROBE: House Democrats are pushing for an investigation into a contract signed by a small Montana-based energy company to help restore Puerto Rico’s electrical grid.

The Washington Post reported Monday that Whitefish Energy had signed a $300 million contract with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to help the island recover from Hurricane Maria.

Whitefish is a two-year-old company that had only two full-time employees when Maria hit. It’s based in Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s hometown.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking member on the House Natural Resources Committee, said Democrats have “pushed for a full investigation of some sort” into the agreement.

“I think there’s more digging to be done,” Grijalva said Tuesday. “We’re looking at it; we pushed for a full investigation of some sort.”

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said Tuesday that he had not yet read reports about the contract. A GOP spokesman told the Post that the deal “raises numerous questions” and that the committee would examine it. The Natural Resources Committee has jurisdiction over Puerto Rico.

Zinke’s office told the Post he knows Whitefish Energy’s CEO and that one of his sons worked at the firm as a summer job. But the agency and company executives said Zinke had no role in the company’s Puerto Rico contract.

The Interior Department did not reply to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Read more here.

 

PARK SERVICE AIMS TO RAISE FEES: The Interior Department is considering increasing entry fees at more than a dozen of the country’s most popular national parks as a way to raise new revenue for infrastructure improvements.

Interior officials proposed instituting higher peak-season fees at 17 national parks during their busiest five-month periods.

“The infrastructure of our national parks is aging and in need of renovation and restoration,” Zinke said in a statement.

“We need to have the vision to look at the future of our parks and take action in order to ensure that our grandkids’ grandkids will have the same if not better experience than we have today. Shoring up our parks’ aging infrastructure will do that.”

President Trump proposed cutting the National Park Service’s budget by 12.9 percent this year, despite concerns from officials within the department and in Congress about the state of the Park Service’s infrastructure.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, tied the rate hike to the controversy surrounding a private flight Zinke chartered earlier this year.

“While Secretary Zinke flies around on private jets using our taxpayer dollars, he is hiking up the fees all American families pay to enjoy our National Parks,” she said.

Read more, and see a full list of affected parks, here.

 

WATCHDOG WARNS OF CLIMATE COSTS: The effects of climate change are already costing the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found.

In a report released late Monday, the GAO tallied the total cost of disaster assistance and flood and crop insurance losses at $350 billion over the last decade, not including the most recent hurricanes and wildfires.

Climate change-linked phenomena like droughts, wildfires, flooding and storms are projected to dramatically increase those costs in the coming decades, possibly by as much as $35 billion per year by 2050, according to the GAO, the watchdog agency of Congress.

“The federal government has not undertaken strategic government-wide planning to manage climate risks by using information on the potential economic effects of climate change to identify significant risks and craft appropriate federal responses,” the GAO report concluded.

“By using such information, the federal government could take the initial step in establishing government-wide priorities to manage such risks.”

Read more here.

 

THE HILL EVENT: Join us Wednesday, Oct. 25, as The Hill goes one-on-one with Dr. Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, for a Newsmaker Series exclusive. We will discuss his agency’s relief efforts in hurricane-affected areas, his priorities for the department and the growing need for affordable housing. RSVP Here

 

ON TAP WEDNESDAY I: The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will vote to advance five Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nominees and one for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The two most controversial nominees on the list are Michael Dourson, Trump’s pick to lead the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, and William Wehrum for the Office of Air and Radiation. Democrats on Tuesday raised fresh concerns about Dourson’s current work at the EPA.

 

ON TAP WEDNESDAY II: The House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on sage grouse management. State officials will speak.

 

Rest of Wednesday’s agenda …

The Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing on new wildfire prevention legislation.

A Natural Resources Committee panel will meet to discuss an Indian lands bill. 

 

AROUND THE WEB:

The company hoping to build a coal export terminal in Washington state has sued state officials over their denial of the project’s permit, the Associated Press reports.

A coal ash site in southwest Pennsylvania won’t be getting any more ash until December, but it might never get ash again, StateImpact Pennsylvania reports.

California auditors found in 2015 that PG&E Corp. was working too slowly to repair power lines, SFGate reports.

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Check out Tuesday’s stories…

-Interior proposes raising fees at popular national parks

-Dems: EPA nominee may be circumventing confirmation

-Democrats call for investigation into Puerto Rico utility deal

-Poll: Utah voters divided on future of two national monuments

-Climate change already costing government billions: GAO

-Small company from Zinke’s hometown wins massive contract to restore Puerto Rico’s power

-Security surrounding EPA administrator rising to unprecedented level: report

 

Please send tips and comments to Timothy Cama, tcama@digital-stage.thehill.com and Devin Henry dhenry@digital-stage.thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @Timothy_Cama, @dhenry, @thehill