Overnight Energy: Flint deal clears way for funding bill

by Timothy Cama and Devin Henry - 09/28/16 6:08 PM ET

CONGRESS STRIKES DEAL ON FLINT, FUNDING: Lawmakers reached a deal on aid for Flint, Mich., that convinced Democrats to drop their opposition to a short-term government funding bill and removed the threat of a government shutdown.

Under the deal, House Republican leaders allowed a vote on Rep. Dan Kildee’s (D-Mich.) Flint aid amendment to a water infrastructure bill.

{mosads}That amendment passed, all but ensuring that when House and Senate negotiators go to conference talks on the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), they will write a final bill that includes Flint aid.

Democrats had demanded last week that the continuing resolution to keep the government funded through Dec. 9 include the $220 million aid package the Senate passed in their waterways bill, something the GOP did not want.

But the deal reached late Tuesday gives Democrats a strong assurance that they will get what they want for Flint.

“The insistence we include Flint in the CR was… because we were hitting a brick wall getting it into WRDA,” Kildee told The Hill.

The deal “goes beyond written assurance. This is a vote in the House of Representatives.”

With that in the bag, the Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to pass the short-term funding bill, and the House is due to do the same later Wednesday.

The House aid package is only $170 million, short of what Democrats wanted and what was in the Senate version.

But now that it’s in the bag, Democrats feel confident that Flint will get significant help from the federal government.

Read more here and here, and follow The Hill for news on the funding bill vote Wednesday night.

BOTH SIDES OPTIMISTIC IN POWER PLANT FIGHT: Both greens and conservative states are optimistic about their chances of victory in a legal fight over President Obama’s climate rule for power plants.

The groups challenging the rule said the 10 judges on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit seemed taken by their arguments about the constitutional standing of the Clean Power Plan, as well as the rule’s impact on coal-fired power plants.

“The collective coalition was able to put very strong legal arguments forward as to why this regulation is unlawful and why it should be set aside,” said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who has led the 28-state group fighting against the rule.

The nearly seven hours of oral arguments on Tuesday showed little sign of consensus among the judges. But six of them were appointed by Democratic presidents and four by Republicans, and no judge appeared to stray significantly from the party line in court.

Like the plan’s opponents, environmental groups also said they sensed a tilt in their direction from the bench.

“I was very pleased with the way the arguments went,” said Sean Donahue, an attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund who argued for 15 green and health groups. “The court had obviously dug beneath the rhetoric of the litigators and into the details of the rule and the supporting facts, and we were really pleased with that.”

A decision in the case is likely either later this year or early in 2017.

Read more here.

ALASKANS PUSH FOR ARCTIC DRILLING: An industry group in Alaska is urging the Obama administration to allow drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf and the Arctic Ocean as part of a plan set to be finalized this year.

The Alaska Support Industry Alliance, in a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, said oil development in the Arctic Ocean could support up to 55,000 jobs a year in the state and result in $150 billion in wages over 50 years of drilling there.

“Let us reiterate to you what we shared with your staff: retaining those lease areas is an essential part of our state’s future, and could play a vital role in turning the Alaskan economy around and strengthening America’s energy security,” the group said in its letter.

The Obama administration is aiming to finalize a five-year drilling plan that proposes two lease sales in the Arctic Ocean over that time.

AROUND THE WEB:

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned four key sections of the state’s hydraulic fracturing law, including provisions regarding a “gag” rule for physicians and a limit on spill notifications, the Washington Observer-Reporter reports.

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed a bill that would have banned smoking at state parks and beaches, the Sacramento Bee reports.

Several endangered whales have been getting tangled in fishing gear off the coast of New England, raising the possibility of new regulations in the future, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Check out Wednesday’s stories…

-OPEC agrees to cut oil output
-Senate passes funding bill to avoid shutdown
-Energy secretary: Green power has increased ‘dramatically’
-Both sides optimistic on EPA climate rule case
-Moniz: ‘We got it right’ on Iran deal
-Reid backs Flint deal
-Canada approves natural gas export project
-Pipeline fight threatens Obama’s tribal legacy