Top Stories

  • Following discussions with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and other state officials, the Public Utility Commission signed two orders that ask energy providers to temporarily suspend any denial of power and water services to customers who have not paid their bills and that block utilities from sending invoices or bill estimates to customers pending further discussion on the issue. The orders came shortly after a report from The New York Times that found some Texas residents are receiving extraordinarily high utility bills, including one Texan who got an electric bill totaling $16,752. (The Texas Tribune)
  • President Joe Biden has approved a major disaster declaration for Texas that will allow 77 of the state’s counties to receive additional federal resources following last week’s widespread power failures and water shortages brought on by record-low temperatures. The approval will also allow individuals and businesses to apply for federal aid, low-cost loans for uninsured property losses and grants for temporary housing and home repairs. (The Hill)
  • The top five largest refiners in Texas released 337,000 pounds of pollutants during last week’s cold snap, according to preliminary data provided to the Texas Commission on Environment Quality, and an analysis by advocacy group Environment Texas found that Houston-area oil refiners released about 703,000 pounds of air pollutants, which is 3 percent more than the total pollution amounts permitted for the entirety of 2019. The shutdowns at facilities that were not suited for the frigid weather forced them to use flaring to burn and release gases to prevent damage to their processing units. (Reuters)
  • New data from research group First Street Foundation indicates that federal flood insurance premiums will need to quadruple for high-risk properties inside floodplains in order to anticipate the growing threats of flooding spurred by climate change. The report, which comes as the Federal Emergency Management Agency is set to announce new premiums April 1, also said that by 2050, premiums under the National Flood Insurance Program will need to increase sevenfold to address increased flooding linked to climate change. (The New York Times)

Chart Review

Events Calendar (All Times Local)

02/22/2021
Aspen Ideas RE$ET: Rebuilding a Resilient Economy for All
IEF webinar feat. Dallas Fed Reserve President & CEO Robert Kaplan: COVID-19 Impacts on the US Oil and Gas Sector: Supply Resilience and Export Potential 9:00 pm
02/23/2021
Aspen Ideas RE$ET: Rebuilding a Resilient Economy for All
Smart Energy Summit: Virtual Conference Series
Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee hearing on the nomination of Rep. Deb Haaland to be Secretary of the Interior 9:30 am
Berkeley Lab webinar: Solar-to-Grid: Trends in System Impacts, Reliability and Market Value of Solar in the United States 10:00 am
GWU event: Climate Change: Defense, Development, and Diplomacy 12:00 pm
Argonne National Laboratory Director’s Special Colloquium:Energy Storage for a Changing World 2:00 pm
Open Space Trust event: Wallace Stegner Lecture with Erin Brockovich 7:00 pm
02/24/2021
Smart Energy Summit: Virtual Conference Series
S&P Global Market Intelligence: 34th Annual Power and Gas M&A Symposium 2021
The WATT Coalition event: Unlocking the Queue 10:00 am
MIT Energy Initiative Energy Innovation Series: Decarbonizing Buildings 10:00 am
Columbia SIPA event: Zero-Carbon Hydrogen Use in Today’s Energy System 12:00 pm
OEP event:The State of Long Duration Energy Storage 12:00 pm
Carbon Capture Coalition event: Federal Policy Blueprint Release 2:00 pm
Atlantic Council event: Electricity System in Crisis: How to Improve Reliability and Resiliency Before the Next Disaster Strikes 4:00 pm
02/25/2021
CSIS event: The Role of Industrial Policy and Trade in Shaping Clean Energy Supply Chains 10:00 am
House Agriculture Committee hearing: Climate Change and the U.S. Agriculture and Forestry Sectors 12:30 pm
House Financial Services Committee Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship and Capital Markets Subcommitteehearing: Climate Change and Social Responsibility: Helping Corporate Boards and Investors Make Decisions for a Sustainable World 2:00 pm
House Appropriations Committee Energy and Water Development Subcommittee hearing: Strategies for Energy and Climate Innovation 2:00 pm
NASEM event: The Future of Electric Power in the United States: Public Briefing 3:00 pm
Columbia SIPA event: Straight Talk with Cheryl LaFleur and David Hill: What Makes Policy Change Successful? 4:00 pm
02/26/2021
EESI Congressional Climate Camp event: Federal Policy to Decarbonize High-Emission Sectors 2:00 pm
View full calendar
PRESENTED BY ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND

What’s the most powerful tool companies have to fight climate change? Their political influence.

The Climate Authenticity Meter assesses how specific actions by companies and industry groups support or obstruct progress on climate policy. Investors, employees, customers and other stakeholders are increasingly demanding that companies make climate policy advocacy a top priority. This tool highlights how corporate climate lobbying activities measure up against the AAA Framework for Climate Policy Leadership, endorsed by the major environmental groups that work with business.

General

Biden Energy Dept orders sweeping review of Trump energy rules
Rebecca Beitsch, The Hill

The Biden administration will review several of the Trump administration’s most controversial energy rules, teeing up a possible reversal of policies that eased or erased efficiency regulations for lightbulbs, showerheads and more.

His Lights Stayed on During Texas’ Storm. Now He Owes $16,752.
Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio et al., The New York Times

As millions of Texans shivered in dark, cold homes over the past week while a winter storm devastated the state’s power grid and froze natural gas production, those who could still summon lights with the flick of a switch felt lucky. Now, many of them are paying a severe price for it.

Texas Blackouts Point to Coast-to-Coast Crises Waiting to Happen
Christopher Flavelle et al., The New York Times

Even as Texas struggled to restore electricity and water over the past week, signs of the risks posed by increasingly extreme weather to America’s aging infrastructure were cropping up across the country.

Texas Failed Because It Did Not Plan
Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic

America’s second-largest state was brought to its knees by winter weather. How could this have happened?

Days Before Blackouts, One Texas Power Giant Sounded the Alarm
Naureen S. Malik and Rachel Adams-Heard, Bloomberg

Vistra Corp., one of the largest power generators in Texas, said it warned state agencies days before cascading blackouts plunged millions into darkness that internal forecasts showed electricity demand was expected to exceed supply.

Inside GM’s Plans to Convert Its Factories for EVs
Mike Colias, The Wall Street Journal

Planning for this transformation at the factory level is the responsibility of Gerald Johnson, a GM lifer who took over global manufacturing operations in 2019, and who is spearheading a $2.2 billion gut rehab of a factory in Detroit, recently renamed Factory Zero, to serve as GM’s electric-vehicle hub. Two more conversions of North American factories for production of electric vehicles, or EVs, are in the works.

Oil prices rise with storm-hit U.S. output set for slow return
Noah Browning, Reuters

Oil prices rose on Monday as the slow return of U.S. crude output cut by frigid conditions served as a reminder of the tight supply situation, just as demand recovers from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Oil and Natural Gas

Saudis, Russia Differ Again on Oil Strategy Before OPEC+ Meeting
Grant Smith et al., Bloomberg

In private, the kingdom has signaled it would prefer that the group broadly holds output steady, delegates said. Moscow, on the other hand, is indicating that it still wants to proceed with a supply increase.

Arctic drilling plan in Alaska hits roadblock
Yereth Rosen, Reuters

Plans for seismic surveys to help find oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have fizzled due to a lack of protection for polar bears, according to a brief statement Saturday from the Department of the Interior.

Texas oil refiners will take weeks to recover, boosting U.S. gasoline prices
Laila Kearney, Reuters

Texas oil refineries shut by cold-weather disruptions may take several weeks to resume normal operations, industry experts said on Friday, helping to push up fuel prices.

U.S. Report Allows Russian Pipeline Project to Proceed, for Now
Brett Forrest, The Wall Street Journal

The State Department in a report to Congress didn’t name new companies as targets for sanctions related to an $11 billion pipeline designed to transmit Russian natural gas to Germany, allowing work on the pipeline to continue unabated for now.

Utilities and Infrastructure

Michigan, Maryland governors to testify on new U.S. infrastructure push
David Shepardson, Reuters

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, will be among those testifying at the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) hearing titled “Building Back Better: Investing in Transportation while Addressing Climate Change, Improving Equity, and Fostering Economic Growth and Innovation.”

How Texas’ Drive for Energy Independence Set It Up for Disaster
Clifford Krauss et al., The New York Times

Texas, the nation’s leading energy-producing state, seemed like the last place on Earth that could run out of energy. Then last week, it did.

Rep. McCaul defends Texas power grid: ‘We’re not used to this type of weather’
Eleanor Mueller, Politico

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) defended his state’s independent power grid Sunday, telling CNN’s Dana Bash that “we’re not used to this type of weather” and pointing to a decade-old report on winterization as the way forward.

State of Texas should pay for enormous energy bills after power outages, Houston mayor says
Emma Newburger, CNBC

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner on Sunday called on the state of Texas to pay for the enormous electric bills that scores of Texans reported after severe winter weather knocked out power and rose energy prices.

After Texas Crisis, Biden’s Climate Plan Hangs on Fragile Power Grid
Brian Eckhouse, Bloomberg

The millions of people who struggled to keep warm in Texas, with blackouts crippling life inside a dominant energy hub, have laid bare the desperate state of U.S. electricity grids. To fix nationwide vulnerabilities, President Joe Biden will have to completely reimagine the American way of producing and transmitting electricity. 

Renewables

Houston mayor: Blaming renewables for Texas blackouts “disingenuous”
Axios

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Saturday that blaming this week’s mass power outages on renewable energy is “disingenuous.”

Biden squeezed between promises to go green and bolster unions
Eric Wolff and Rebecca Rainey, Politico

As the renewable energy industry expands, unions and their allies in Congress are determined to unionize more of the jobs or, at the very least, require the payment of union-equivalent wages. But the industry says such moves would cripple some of their operations.

Coal/Nuclear

The Activists Who Embrace Nuclear Power
Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, The New Yorker

Today, the looming disruptions of climate change have altered the risk calculus around nuclear energy. James Hansen, the NASA scientist credited with first bringing global warming to public attention, in 1988, has long advocated a vast expansion of nuclear power to replace fossil fuels. 

Climate

Kerry warns the US has 9 years to avoid worst climate consequences
Rachel Frazin, The Hill

Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry warned Friday that there are just nine years left for the U.S. to evade the worst possible climate change consequences.

Rejoining Paris was easy. Here’s where the climate fight gets awkward.
Zack Colman, Politico

The U.S. got cheers as it rejoined the Paris Agreement Friday, a long-expected move under President Joe Biden that the administration nonetheless packed with all the pomp and circumstance the Zoom-era can muster. But after the (virtual) confetti falls, the real work begins — and the world has few clear answers for tackling runaway climate change, much as when nations banded together to sign Paris in 2015.

Texas and California built different power grids, but neither stood up to climate change
Eric Wolff et al., Politico

The two sprawling, politically potent states have devoted massive sums to their power networks over the past two decades — California to produce huge amounts of wind and solar energy, Texas to create an efficient, go-it-alone electricity market built on gas, coal, nuclear and wind. But neither could keep the lights on in the face of the type of brutal weather that scientists call a taste of a changing climate.

A Message From Environmental Defense Fund:

What’s the most powerful tool companies have to fight climate change? Their political influence.

The Climate Authenticity Meter assesses how specific actions by companies and industry groups support or obstruct progress on climate policy. Investors, employees, customers and other stakeholders are increasingly demanding that companies make climate policy advocacy a top priority. This tool highlights how corporate climate lobbying activities measure up against the AAA Framework for Climate Policy Leadership, endorsed by the major environmental groups that work with business.

Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives

Wind power is not to blame for Texas blackout
The Editorial Board, Financial Times

Outage shows perils of underestimating the impact of extreme weather.

Why Texas Republicans Fear the Green New Deal
Naomi Klein, The New York Times

Texans are living through the collapse of a 40-year experiment in free-market fundamentalism, one that has also stood in the way of effective climate action. Fortunately, there’s a way out — and that’s precisely what Republican politicians in the state most fear.

Research Reports

The Cost of Climate: America’s Growing Flood Risk
First Street Foundation

New research from First Street Foundation quantifies the financial impact of flood risk carried by American homeowners and how those dangers are growing as flood risks worsen due to a rapidly changing climate. First Street Foundation found that there are nearly 4.3 million residential homes (1–4 units) across the country with substantial flood risk (1% annual) that would result in economic damage.

Morning Consult