Trump administration

• President Donald Trump announced he will nominate former energy lobbyist David Bernhardt, the acting secretary of the Interior, to lead the department.

• In his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump avoided mention of coal, renewables and climate change, instead championing the United States’ position as the top oil and natural gas producer worldwide. Trump also declared the United States a net energy exporter, though the U.S. Energy Information Administration has projected that the country will eventually become a net energy exporter by 2020.

• The Energy Department announced that staff are banned from involvement in talent-recruitment opportunities sponsored by unspecified countries where the U.S. government has concerns about the use and replication of U.S. technology.

• The National Park Service will not use visitor entrance fees to pay for park maintenance and staffing dated to the partial government shutdown, according to a memo to staff from the service’s deputy director, Dan Smith.

Green New Deal

• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced their Green New Deal resolutions, which lay out a goal to transition the United States off fossil fuels and toward 100 percent renewable and zero-emission resources, as well as to create millions of high-paying jobs.

• The energy community was confused over a frequently asked questions fact sheet from Ocasio-Cortez’s office that said the Green New Deal would not support construction of new nuclear plants or investment in carbon capture technologies and would make “new fossil fuel infrastructure” unnecessary. Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff walked back the fact sheet on Twitter, while Markey noted the resolution is “silent on individual technologies.”

Congress

• The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted along party lines to approve acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s nomination, moving him closer to a confirmation vote by the full Senate.

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced eight Democratic lawmakers who will serve on the revived special climate change committee but did not name Ocasio-Cortez to the panel.

Oil and gas

• Qatar Petroleum and Exxon Mobil Corp. announced a $10 billion investment in the dormant Golden Pass liquefied natural gas export terminal in Sabine Pass, Texas, to turn the project from an import terminal into an export hub for gas coming from Texas, New Mexico and other areas.

• Officials from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said Saudi Arabia and allies in the Persian Gulf support formalization of the loose union between OPEC and a 10-nation group headed by Russia, as a means of working together to reach a price floor on oil.

• Chevron Corp. said it would reduce the intensity of its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 30 percent by 2023 across all of its assets and in line with the Paris climate accord, using the metric to determine staff bonuses.

• The House and Senate are both in session.

• The House Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Subcommittee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the Energy Department’s Weatherization Assistance Program at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

• The EPA has rescheduled its public hearing for the revised Waters of the United States definition for Feb. 27-28 in Kansas City, Kan.

1) Green New Deal won’t call for end to fossil fuels
Zack Colman, Politico

2) ‘Green New Deal’ lands in the Capitol
Zack Colman and Anthony Adragna, Politico

3) Energy Department to Ban Foreign Talent-Recruitment Programs
Timothy Puko and Kate O’Keeffe, The Wall Street Journal

4) Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal: What’s in it
Lydia DePillis, CNN

5) Green New Deal: Instant Reaction
Jacqueline Toth, Morning Consult

6) Trump picks ex-oil lobbyist David Bernhardt for Interior secretary
Timothy Cama and Miranda Green, The Hill

7) Climate Change Could Leave Thousands of Lakes Ice-Free
Nadja Popovich, The New York Times

8) ‘Green New Deal’ rollout creates confusion about role of nuclear power, fossil fuels
Josh Siegel, Washington Examiner

9) Pelosi names Dems to new climate panel — but not AOC
Timothy Cama, The Hill

10) U.S. Wind Industry Fourth Quarter 2018 Market Report
American Wind Energy Association