Overnight Energy: Interior moves ahead with drilling lease sales after judge halts pause

HAPPY TUESDAY!. Welcome to Overnight Energy  — your source for the day’s energy and environment news. 

Please send tips and comments to Rachel Frazin at rfrazin@digital-stage.thehill.com . Follow her on Twitter: @RachelFrazin . Reach Zack Budryk at zbudryk@digital-stage.thehill.com or follow him at @BudrykZack . 

Today we’re looking at the Interior Department moving ahead with drilling leases after it’s pause, the House’s adoption of a $3.5 trillion budget deal, and research showing that climate change is increasing flood risks in Europe. 

A NEW LEASE ON LIFE: Interior moves ahead with lease sales after judge halts pause

The Interior Department announced Tuesday evening it will resume sales of oil and gas leases after a court ordered a preliminary hold on the Biden administration’s leading moratorium.

While the administration appeals, Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Management (BOEM) will submit a decision by the end of this month on a specific offshore lease sale that was canceled in February, several months before a court issued a hold on the leasing freeze, the department said.

The department projected the notice for Lease Sale 257 will be published at some point in September but noted that federal law requires the lease sale to take place at least 30 days after the publication of the sale notice. So that sounds like October at the earliest….

The Bureau of Land Management, meanwhile, will post information on two land parcels for potential leasing after deferring the sales in the first two quarters of 2021. BLM will conduct environmental reviews for the parcels after a 30-day scoping period, according to the department.

“In complying with the district court’s injunction, the Interior Department will continue to exercise the authority and discretion provided under law to conduct leasing in a manner that fulfills Interior’s legal responsibilities, including to take into account the programs’ documented deficiencies,” the department said in a statement.

Read more about the announcement here. 

KIND OF A BIG DEAL: House Democrats break internal impasse to adopt $3.5T budget plan

House Democrats on Tuesday rallied behind a new strategy to advance President Biden’s economic agenda, shortly after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) struck a deal with a small band of moderates who were threatening to blow up leadership’s carefully laid plans to pass trillions of dollars in federal spending.

The House voted 220-212, strictly along party lines, to adopt a rule that allows Democrats to immediately begin work on a massive $3.5 trillion social benefits package. The rule also requires the lower chamber to take up the Senate-passed bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill by Sept. 27.

In addition, the rule clears the way for the House to vote later Tuesday on legislation that would restore the portion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that required localities with histories of voter suppression to get federal clearance before making changes to election laws.

The big picture: The deal Pelosi reached on Tuesday provides a brief detente between Democratic moderates and progressives as House lawmakers leave Washington to resume their summer recess.

But the internecine sniping over process, strategy and timing foreshadows just how difficult it will be for the party to stay united when it comes to turning their policy goals into law in the coming weeks as they seek to show voters that they can govern.

What comes next? Pelosi has asked many of her committee chairmen to begin working on relevant parts of the gigantic spending package and report back to House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky. by Sept. 15. 

The Budget panel would then package everything together and prepare it for a floor vote when the chamber is scheduled to return to Washington in late September.

Read more about the new agreement here. 

A FLOOD OF INFORMATION: Climate change increasing chances for deadly flooding in western Europe: research

Climate change is increasing the risk of severe flooding as a result of heavy rainfall in Western Europe, according to research published Tuesday by World Weather Attribution (WWA).

In their analysis, researchers looked at severe flooding that killed some 200 people in Germany and Belgium after rainfall inundated riverbanks. They analyzed how climate change affected similar events throughout the region, particularly between the Netherlands and the northern Alps.

The researchers determined that climate change has increased one-day summer rainfall event intensity in that area by 3 to 19 percent.

The analysis is based on a combination of regional climate models, high-resolution simulation models and data observations, according to WWA. The observation-based data shows larger variations in likelihood and intensity compared to the other models.

“All available evidence taken together, including physical understanding, observations over a larger region and different regional climate models give high confidence that human-induced climate change has increased the likelihood and intensity of such an event to occur and these changes will continue in a rapidly warming climate,” researchers concluded.

Read more about the research here. 

WHAT WE’RE READING:

Why Is Texas Allocating Funds For Reducing Air Emissions to Widening Highways? InsideClimate News reports

Alleged Boise neo-Nazis charged with planning power grid attacks in Idaho, Northwest, the Idaho Statesman reports

Biden aims to remove all lead pipes. Will EPA follow suit?, E&E News reports

U.S. lawmaker urges Biden use emergency powers to save Illinois nuclear plants, Reuters reports

Texas’ power grid is getting a redesign. Here’s what renewable energy experts think about it, KXAN reports