Overnight Energy: Climate negotiator faces Congress

by Timothy Cama and Devin Henry - 10/20/15 6:01 PM ET

A STERN TALKING TO: The GOP is accusing President Obama’s main climate negotiator of avoiding the Senate in international climate talks.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chairman of a Foreign Relations Committee subpanel, said at a Tuesday hearing that any deal negotiators reach at the talks in Paris in December needs to go through Senate ratification.

“Just like the Kyoto protocol and the United Nations framework convention on climate change, any agreement that commits our nation to targets or timetables must go through the process established by the founders in our Constitution,” Barrasso told Todd Stern.

{mosads}”It must be submitted to the United States Senate for its advice and consent.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, agreed, saying in a statement that, “I believe we, as the Senate, should support basic oversight responsibilities, especially when they are consistent with past practice.”

Stern said whether the deal would go through the Senate hinges largely on whether countries’ individual contributions are legally binding. That’s a factor that has not yet been finalized in the negotiations, though it’s one U.S. officials oppose.

Barrasso was the only Republican at the hearing that was dominated by Democrats who thanked Stern for his work.

Read more here.

ON TAP WEDNESDAY I: A Senate Environment and Public Works Committee panel will hold a hearing on the economic impact of Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

ON TAP WEDNESDAY II: The EPA’s Mathy Stanislaus will testify on “good samaritan” abandoned mine cleanup opportunities during a House Transportation Committee hearing. The hearing comes amid debates about how to handle hundreds of abandoned mines in the West, after a massive mine waste spill caused by the EPA in August.

Rest of Wednesday’s agenda…

Two House Science, Space and Technology subcommittees will probe cybersecurity for the American power supply.

NEWS BITE: Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign has hired a communications director for a top grassroots environmental group to serve as New Hampshire spokesman.

Politico reported Tuesday that Karthik Ganapathy will soon join the Sanders campaign. Ganapathy has previously served as spokesman for the group 350.org.

The climate group has pressured Democrats to embrace aggressive environmental policies. It was especially critical of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton for her long-held refusal to take a position on the Keystone XL pipeline, something she eventually came out against in September.

Polls show Sanders holding a lead over Clinton in New Hampshire, a key early voting state that borders Sanders’s home state of Vermont.

AROUND THE WEB:

Chesapeake Energy Corp. is being fined $2.1 million by the Interior Department for underreporting natural gas production from American Indian land in Oklahoma, the Oklahoman reports.

New Jersey officials heard widely diverging views at a public hearing on whether to build a natural gas pipeline under the sensitive Pinelands National Reserve, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

Environmental groups say piles of coal waste are polluting water and soil in Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Check out Tuesday’s stories…

-GOP senators: Obama circumventing Congress in climate deal talks
-European greenhouse gas emissions drop
-Sanders calls for federal probe of Exxon
-Greens hopeful about Canadian election
-Can beer save bees?
-Top Republican skeptical of Obama Interior nominees
-Kerry: Canadian vote won’t change Keystone review
-The art of the possible