Overnight Energy: Republicans split on conservation fund

GOP INFIGHTING: Some Republicans have begun to cast doubt on House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop’s (R-Utah) plan to overhaul a federal conservation fund. 

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who has authored a bill to permanently reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund, said Tuesday he doesn’t support Bishop’s bill to overhaul the LWCF. 

“I respect the fact that [Bishop] finally put something out there,” Burr said in an interview. “It doesn’t live in the spirit of why LWCF was created and I think the claims that he’s made just don’t hold water about how the LWCF has been used.”

{mosads}Bishop — who has joined other Western Republicans in criticizing the fund for giving the federal government too much power — introduced a bill last week limiting federal land purchases and funneling more money to state conservation programs, urban areas and repair and maintenance accounts.

Democrats and conservation groups have criticized that plan. Burr and Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.), who both support a clean reauthorization of the fund, joined in this week, with Meehan calling the proposal a “radical departure for the LWCF.”

A Bishop aide said a clean, permanent reauthorization of the fund isn’t going anywhere this session, muddying the issue’s path forward this Congress. 

“Chairman Bishop welcomes input from anyone and the debate that is to come, but ignoring its problems with a permanent reauthorization of the broken program is simply not going to happen,” spokeswoman Julia Slingsby said Tuesday. 

Read more here. 

KERRY: KEYSTONE DECISION THE RIGHT ONE: Secretary of State John Kerry said the Obama administration’s Friday decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline shows its commitment to enacting a strong climate policy. 

“I know all the arguments. I heard them backwards and forwards for the last year and a half,” Kerry said at Old Dominion University on Tuesday.

“What [Keystone] would do — or would have done — was facilitate the passage into and through our country of one of the dirtiest fuels on the planet.”

Kerry’s State Department had conducted the final federal review of the project, setting up Obama’s veto of the proposal on Friday. 

On Tuesday, he said governments need to move toward energy production that is “different and far smarter and [more] readily available” than the oil that would have traveled from Canada through the United States in the pipeline.

Kerry also promised to push for a strong new climate change agreement at a United Nations meeting next month. 

“We have a responsibility to protect the future of our nation and world,” he said. “That’s our charge. That’s our duty. We have to get it right.”

Read more here. 

CONSERVATION FUND ADVOCATES HIT AIRWAVES: The Western Values Project is working to convince three Republicans to oppose their own party’s Land and Water Conservation Fund bill. 

The group is hitting the airwaves with a national advertisement during Tuesday night’s GOP presidential debate, and local ads in the districts of Reps. Dan Benishek (R-Mich.), Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.), and Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.). 

The ad encourages members to oppose Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop’s (R-Utah) LWCF overhaul. 

Bishop introduced his reform bill last week, immediately garnering opposition from conservation groups who have pushed for a clean renewal of the fund. The House Natural Resources Committee will consider the legislation next week. 

Western Values Project’s ad says Bishop is “blocking the fund, which threatens our environment, jobs, and communities.” Its goal is to encourage Benishek, MacArthur and Newhouse — all Natural Resources Committee members — to buck Bishop and support a clean reauthorization for the lapsed program. 

See the ad here. 

CHAMBER SHAMES DEMS ON WATER BILL: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of groups opposed to the Obama administration’s new water rule are urging a handful of Democratic senators to rethink their vote supporting the regulation. 

In a Tuesday letter, the groups voiced their “extreme disappointment” that the 11 Democrats voted against a bill that would have blocked the so-called Waters of the U.S. rule last week. 

The Democrats later sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Army Corps of Engineers expressing concern about the rule. But the Chamber said they should have voted for Sen. John Barrasso’s (R-Wyo.) bill to block it instead. 

“No amount of the ‘clearer and concise implementation guidance’ you call for in your letter can address the flaws in the final rule, because, unless and until a court of law orders it vacated or remanded, EPA will assert the final promulgated rule is the law of the land,” the groups wrote.

Read the letter here. 

ON TAP WEDNESDAY: Legal experts and green groups will discuss the upcoming Paris climate talks at an American University conference. 

AROUND THE WEB: 

Montreal will proceed with a plan to dump sewage into the St. Lawrence River as early as this week, CBC News reports.

Shell has launched a carbon capture project for oil development in Alberta. UPI has the details. 

Australia and South Korea are looking to stymie a U.S.-Japan effort to complicate new financing for coal-fired power plants in developing countries, ClimateWire reports. 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 

Check out Tuesday’s stories … 

-GOP infighting breaks out over conservation bill 
-Manhattan Project sites get national park status
-Kerry: Keystone decision shows US commitment to climate action 
-Anti-ethanol group expands national ad buy
-GOP governor to sign gas tax hike 
–Keystone XL: Not dead yet?

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