Energy & Environment — Biden to hold new, shrunken oil lease sale

by Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk - 04/15/22 7:02 PM ET

The Interior Department is selling additional oil and gas leases, but with some changes. And former EPA boss Scott Pruitt is running for the U.S. Senate.

This is Overnight Energy & Environment, your source for the latest news focused on energy, the environment and beyond. For The Hill, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk. Someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here.

Interior declares new oil, gas lease sales, royalty hike

The Interior Department on Friday announced another round of oil and gas lease sales on public lands as well as an increase in royalty rates.

The administration initially froze new leasing on public lands shortly after President Biden took office, but a federal district court that summer issued an injunction against the order. The department cited that injunction in announcing the lease sales.

In the announcement, the department said the Interior Department will issue final sales notices for the upcoming sales Monday. The Interior Department also announced a royalty hike, increasing rates from 12.5 to 18.75 percent.

The administration said the sale would incorporate 173 land parcels on about 144,000 acres, 80 percent less than the acreage nominated under the Trump administration.

The story so far: In October, the Bureau of Land Management said that it will incorporate national greenhouse gas emissions in oil and gas leasing decisions. Separately, the federal government also said it would incorporate the so-called social cost of carbon into leasing decisions and other regulations.

Judge James Cain, a Trump appointee, blocked the use of the metric in February, but an appeals court overturned the ruling in March. The same week, the department announced new lease sales would proceed following the ruling.

The Interior Department had previously announced an offshore lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico, but after a court ruled those sales invalid, the government said it would not appeal.

A mixed reaction: Responses from environmental and conservation groups were mixed. A spokesperson for the Center for Western Priorities called it “good news” that “shows that Secretary Haaland and her team at Interior are listening to Westerners and working in the best interest of taxpayers.”

“By limiting the upcoming sale to areas with existing oil and gas infrastructure, Interior will prevent speculators from locking up public lands with little or no potential for future production,” he added. “Raising the royalty rate ensures taxpayers will get a fair share from oil produced on these parcels.”

However, the Center for Biological Diversity excoriated the decision.

“The Biden administration’s claim that it must hold these lease sales is pure fiction and a reckless failure of climate leadership,” Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “It’s as if they’re ignoring the horror of firestorms, floods and megadroughts, and accepting climate catastrophes as business as usual.”

Trump’s EPA chief files to run for Senate

Trump-era Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt will run to represent Oklahoma in the Senate.

Pruitt officially filed on Friday to run for the seat currently held by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.). Inhofe announced earlier this year that he would not run for reelection.

It had been previously reported that Pruitt was considering a Senate bid.

Pruitt helmed the agency tasked with protecting the environment until resigning in 2018 amid several ethics controversies.

He faced scrutiny for his $50 per night deal to rent a condo co-owned by the wife of an energy lobbyist as well as for spending on his security detail, first-class travel and a soundproof booth in his office.

He also targeted several Obama-era environmental protections for rollbacks or changes, including climate regulations on power plants and oil and gas drillers, as well as clean water regulations.

Inhofe announced in February that he would retire at the start of 2023, triggering a special election to replace him.

Pruitt will face off against a number of other Republicans in the June 28 primary, including Rep. Markwayne Mullin and Inhofe’s longtime chief of staff Luke Holland, whom the senator has backed.

MCCARTHY PUSHES BACK ON EXIT RUMORS

National climate adviser Gina McCarthy is pushing back on reports that she will soon depart her White House post.

Late Thursday she tweeted, “Reports that I have resigned from my position as President Biden’s National Climate Advisor are simply inaccurate.”

“We’ve made great progress these past 14 months, but we have much more work to do — and I remain excited about the opportunities ahead,” McCarthy added.

However, it was not reported that she resigned. Instead, multiple news outlets reported that she was planning to step down.

Reuters, which first reported on the potential exit, noted that she could leave as soon as next month. E&E News reported that she would leave in the coming months.

Asked for comment on Thursday, White House spokesperson Vedant Patel said via email, ”We have no personnel announcements to make.”

“Gina and her entire team continue to be laser focused on delivering on President Biden’s clean energy agenda,” he added.

Sources said there has been talk about the possibility McCarthy could leave her position, but they did not have direct knowledge of any plans or timing of any departure.

It is not particularly unusual for White House officials to leave after more than a year of service, though most are likely to try to stay at least until after the November midterm elections.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki, for instance, has said she plans to leave her role this year.

Wind power overtook coal, nuclear for first time

Wind power was the No. 2 source for power generation in the U.S. for the first time ever on March 29, surpassing coal and nuclear power, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Thursday.

Wind turbines in the continental U.S. produced 2,017 gigawatthours of electricity on the 29th, according to data from the EIA. While there have been days in the past when wind generation separately outpaced coal and nuclear generation, the 29th marked the first day that it surpassed both power sources.

The full story: Natural gas remained the top source of power generation on March 29, comprising 31 percent of power generation, followed by wind, nuclear and coal.

The milestone comes a little more than two years after nationwide wind capacity outstripped nuclear capacity in September 2019. This did not immediately result in higher wind power output than nuclear, because wind generators are designed to run at lower capacity than nuclear generators.

Wind power generation often hits an annual high in spring, when wind speeds tend to peak and electricity demand is usually at one of its lowest points, which prompts coal and nuclear generators to reduce output. Overall, wind typically produces the least amount of electricity per month of any major source, and the EIA does not project that it will surpass coal or nuclear for a full month at any point during this year or 2023.