Daily on Energy: Where permitting reform stands

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Thursday, readers! Fall is in full swing here in D.C., and that means Callie is back in her kitchen experimenting with fun new bakes. This week, she made a pumpkin loaf with a cream cheese icing, check it out here. 🎃🍂🍞 Do you have any fun fall recipes? Let us know! Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner energy and environment writers Callie Patteson (@CalliePatteson) and Maydeen Merino (@MaydeenMerino). Email cpatteson@washingtonexaminer dot com or mmerino@washingtonexaminer dot com for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list. Deal or no deal? As of today, the Senate is leaning toward no deal on permitting reform. “I think it’s worse than nearly dead. It sounds dead dead,” Utah Sen. John Curtis told Washington Examiner alum Cami Mondeaux earlier today. There was hope yesterday afternoon that negotiators in the Senate would soon release text of a draft permitting bill, after the White House signaled it would ease up on President Donald Trump’s crackdown on wind and solar projects. Bloomberg reported that the administration told Democrats that it would move forward on roughly 30 wind projects out of 300 that have been put on pause by the Pentagon. This marked a major concession from the White House, as Democrats have long expressed concerns about supporting a permitting reform bill without a commitment from the administration to allow renewable energy projects to move forward. For many in Washington, this meant the deal was all but finalized. “We had more than a structure of a deal,” key negotiator and Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito told Bloomberg. “It was pretty pens down.” Overnight, however, Democrats appeared to slow things down. “The administration and congressional Republicans agreed to a strong bipartisan offer. The Democrats have since refused to take yes for an answer,” a White House official told Punchbowl. “If they think that the administration is going to freeze these concessions until the lame duck, they are severely mistaken.” By this morning, top Democratic negotiator Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse told reporters that a vote on permitting likely wouldn’t happen before the midterm elections. In addition to securing more assurances from the administration, the delay now is to put the legislation before stakeholders and other members of the party.“You tend to get a bad reaction when you jam members asking them to vote on things they haven’t seen,” Whitehouse said this morning, per Argus Media. Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Martin Heinrich also told Punchbowl that he would hate to see permitting reform “kicked to the curb” due to a vote being “jammed” early next week. While he doubts the Senate can vote on the matter before the midterms, Heinrich said a date can be set for a certain vote.With the Senate still in session for the next week, some Republicans are accusing Democrats of preventing the GOP from obtaining a win before the midterms. What could be included in the bill? If the Senate is able to strike a deal, a draft bill is expected to include provisions reforming parts of the National Environmental Policy Act, such as the length of judicial reviews. Democrats have pushed for transmission measures to accelerate the interconnection of renewable energy resources, while Republicans have also called for provisions streamlining reviews under the National Historic Preservation Act. While no text has formally been floated as of this afternoon, several reports have indicated that the bill would include language regarding utility rate hikes and data centers. Time running out: The Senate is scheduled to break for midterm election campaigns at the end of next week, though depending on voting schedules, members could be sent home early. It’s looking increasingly unlikely that the Senate would hold a vote on permitting reform before heading home for midterm campaigns, particularly as the House will not return until after the November elections. Punting permitting to November is a risk, as Democrats are poised to regain the majority in the House. It’s not unprecedented for legislation to be passed in a lame-duck decision, though some Democrats may be hesitant to get on board with a Republican-led bill. Meanwhile, the White House may be less eager to give Democrats any concessions after losing the House majority. Still, there is a sense across the aisle that momentum for permitting reform will not falter. “If it gets passed in November instead of September, it’s still a big win for the American people,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Politico this afternoon. “We want to get permitting reform done.” All the rest: SENATE GOP PUSHES FOR A VOTE ON THE RATEPAYER PROTECTION ACT: Senate Republicans are pushing for the chamber to take a roll call vote on a data center energy bill before lawmakers leave for midterms. Senate Republicans during a lunch yesterday discussed staying in town next week to vote on some key bills. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Washington Examiner’s David Sivak there are several options the Senate could focus on next week, including the Ratepayer Protection Act. The Ratepayer Protection Act passed the House with bipartisan support earlier this month. Republican Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio last week brought the bill for a floor vote under unanimous consent but it was blocked by Democrat Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. Heinrich argued that the bill did not go far enough. If the Senate passes the Ratepayer Protection Act, it would provide Husted with a win before the midterm elections, as he is up for reelection. SCOTT AND WARNOCK UNVEIL CRITICAL MINERAL BILL: Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia introduced a bill to establish a critical mineral training program for the Foreign Service. It would also create a permanent position of special advisor to the president for critical minerals and supply chains within the National Security Council. The bill advances two provisions within the House-passed DOMINANCE Act, which was led by Republican Rep. Young Kim of California and Democratic Rep. Ami Bera of California. The legislation has six provisions aimed at strengthening the critical mineral supply chain and federal coordination. Other senators have introduced separate pieces of legislation to advance the other provisions. Read more by Maydeen here. GEOTHERMAL IS HEATING UP: The geothermal energy industry has just hit a major milestone, as Fervo Energy announced this morning that it achieved “first power” at its Utah facility, a first for any utility-scale geothermal project. What does first power mean? It essentially means that the geothermal project, known as Cape Station, was able to generate electricity and send it to the grid. “This is a gamechanger for the geothermal industry. It establishes [Enhanced Geothermal Systems] as the defining new power generation technology of our time and we believe it shows that the commercial and technical maturity of EGS is ready to meet the urgent need for reliable, clean power,” said Tim Latimer, Fervo CEO and cofounder. Under the first phase of the Cape Station project, Fervo is expecting to generate around 100 megawatts of electricity. It is made up of three 33-megawatt “GeoBlocks,” the first of which achieved the first power stage, and is expected to hit its commercial operations date of Oct. 1. The company expects to bring the two remaining geoblocks online by Jan. 1. The next phase of the project will add an additional 400 megawatts to Cape Station’s capacity sometime in 2028. At full capacity, Fervo anticipates the Utah site will generate as much as 900 megawatts, enough to power nearly 1 million homes. A $5 BILLION INVESTMENT IN THE GRID: The Department of Energy unveiled $5 billion in spending on projects to upgrade grid and transmission infrastructure across the country, aiming to make more power available to data centers while also lowering electric bills. The administration is specifically committing $1.9 billion in federal funding to new grid investments as part of its SPARK initiative, which was formerly known as the Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships Program. Another $3.35 billion will be granted through recipient cost-share funding, bringing the total investment to around $5.25 billion, the agency said this morning. Where are the funds going? The money will be spread across 31 projects in 26 states. In total, the administration anticipates that the projects will reconductor or rebuild more than 1,500 miles of transmission lines and deploy grid-enhancing technologies across nearly 21,000 miles. The agency estimates that these upgrades will add at least an additional 23 gigawatts of electricity capacity to the grid. Some of the projects listed by the administration as recipients of the funding on Thursday explicitly said they aimed to unlock additional capacity to meet data center demand. In addition to providing more transmission capacity, several listed projects are meant to provide more grid resilience, protecting infrastructure from extreme weather events such as wildfires and flooding.Read more from Callie here. OIL AND REFINERIES PUSH BACK ON DIESEL BAN: The U.S. oil and refining industry yesterday evening called on the president to not impose a ban on diesel exports. The letter was sent by 36 industry and business groups, including the American Petroleum Institute, Liquid Energy Pipeline Association, National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Western States Petroleum Association. “You have been asked by some to ban or limit the export of diesel to help lower prices, when in fact the opposite would occur,” the letter reads. An “export ban would force reductions in refining utilization, increase prices for gasoline and jet fuel, and lead to retaliatory actions from other countries,” they added. Many fuel experts have warned that a diesel ban is only a temporary solution and could result in higher prices. Energy Secretary Chris Wright yesterday said that the administration would be making a decision soon on its approach to curbing diesel prices. Reuters reported today that Wright has reached out to several major U.S. refineries to assess support for voluntarily restricting diesel exports. Wright yesterday noted that the administration would look to impose partial restrictions on exports and it would be voluntary. FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES THAT DONATED TO TRUMP’S CAMPAIGN REWARDED WITH TAX BREAKS, DEMOCRATS SAY: Democrats in the Senate unveiled a report today claiming that oil and gas companies that spent hundreds of millions of dollars on Trump’s 2024 campaign were rewarded with tax breaks and deregulation since Trump returned to office. The report, titled “The Billion Dollar Deal: How the Fossil Fuel Industry Bought the TrumpAdministration, Cashed In, and Left Americans to Pay the Price,” was authored by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and EPW ranking member Whitehouse. “The damning facts are straightforward. At an April 2024 Mar-a-Lago fundraiser, then-candidateTrump asked oil and gas executives to put up $1 billion to return him to power, in exchange for tax breaks and deregulation,” the Democrats wrote. “Big Oil delivered in the hundreds of millions, and the Trump Administration has delivered right back, handing polluters benefits worth hundreds of billions of dollars.” The report points to measures benefitting the fossil fuel industry that were included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer, including reduced royalties for oil and gas drilling and new subsidies for fossil fuel development. The report is based on 19 investigations into regulatory rollbacks within the Environmental Protection Agency, 13 investigations into nine other agencies, and 13 investigations into what the Democrats described as “separate polluters.” You can read the full report here. RUNDOWNVox A sinkhole swallowed Nicolas Cage’s driveway. 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