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MANCHIN’S ASKS: The legislative agreement between Sen. Joe Manchin and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calls for Congress to take up “comprehensive” permitting reform in a bill separate from their reconciliation deal, and the provisions currently under consideration could well achieve that depending on how they’re ultimately drawn up.

Manchin’s office put out a broad list of permitting reform items on Monday covering “what has been agreed to,” a spokesperson confirmed. It would address everything from litigation against projects to permitting review times and FERC jurisdiction over interstate hydrogen infrastructure.

Here’s a look at three notable provisions:

Projects of national interest: Manchin’s list proposes to direct the president to designate a list of at least 25 high-priority infrastructure projects deemed to be of “strategic national importance” for which permitting should be prioritized.

This list would have to include both green and legacy fossil fuel projects that meet various criteria, including whether they would reduce consumer energy costs or improve energy reliability.

In general, it sounds a lot like the European Union’s “projects of common interest” designation, which opens up projects to accelerated permitting and has been extended to natural gas projects, much to the chagrin of environmental groups.

The administration could utilize such a designation to speed up reviews and permitting for offshore wind, which Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has singled out for being too lengthy. With its priority of getting liquefied natural gas to Europe, it could also give extra umph to pipelines that would transport gas to liquefaction terminals.

Litigation: Also on the table are new requirements for courts, including random assignment of judges to hear appeals, as well as a potential statute of limitations for litigation challenging permits.

Xan Fishman, director of energy policy and carbon management at the Bipartisan Policy Center, emphasized that the statute of limitations provision is vague but said the motivation is to insulate project developers from uncertainties.

“The idea is that once you get your record of decision and you want to start building, you don't risk a lawsuit that you weren't predicting years down the line to stop you, you know, after you’re three quarters into building your thing,” Fishman told Jeremy.

Mountain Valley Pipeline: Buried at the bottom of the list is the clearest overture to Manchin, an item proposing to require agencies overseeing permitting for the West Virginia-to-Virginia natural gas pipeline to finish the job.

It also proposed to “give the DC Circuit jurisdiction over any further litigation,” ostensibly to claw jurisdiction away from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, where the project’s challengers have achieved vacaturs for multiple of the pipeline’s federal permits since 2019.

Most recently, the Fourth Circuit vacated the Fish and Wildlife Service’s biological opinion, required under the Endangered Species Act, for the project, finding that it was inadequate.

The slog has angered Manchin, and others who support more fossil energy exports have treated the project as a totem of an inhibitive permitting process.

Paul Bledsoe, a strategic adviser with the Progressive Policy Institute and former Senate Finance Committee staff member who has authored multiple papers advocating more U.S. liquefied natural gas exports, said that without permitting reform, the U.S. can’t address climate change or cut consumer energy costs.

The U.S. needs more electric transmission, Bledsoe told Jeremy, and “we need new natural gas pipelines to rapidly phase out coal, and to keep domestic prices low while we increase exports to help our European allies.”

The battle squaring up: Not all are on board. Some Democrats are worried that adding timelines or other strictures to environmental reviews amounts to corner-cutting.

Rep. Raul Grijalva, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said comprehensive reform is a “another euphemism” for cutting down the National Environmental Policy Act.

Meanwhile, Abigail Dillen, head of environmental law outfit Earthjustice, pledged the group will fight the reform effort, which she called an “attempt to weaken bedrock environmental review laws.”

Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Jeremy Beaman (@jeremywbeaman) and Breanne Deppisch (@breanne_dep). Email [email protected] or [email protected] 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.

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REGULATORS APPROVE VOGTLE 3 NUCLEAR OPERATION: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has authorized Southern Co. to load nuclear fuel rods into its newly constructed Unit 3 reactor at the Vogtle Power Plant in Georgia, marking a major milestone for the project after years of costly and extensive delays.

"Before authorization, we independently verified that Vogtle Unit 3 has been properly built and will protect public health and safety when it transitions to operation," Andrea Veil, director of the NRC’s office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, said in a statement yesterday.

The new reactor could begin receiving nuclear fuel as early as October.

WTI FALLS BELOW $90 FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE FEBRUARY: U.S. crude futures dropped below $90 a barrel today for the first time since before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

Futures for U.S.-based West Texas Intermediate (WTI) dropped by as much as 1%, falling to $89.80 a barrel.

The decline in prices is expected to help alleviate pain at the gas pump for U.S. drivers, reversing months of soaring prices which topped off in June, with the national average climbing to a record-high of more than $5 a gallon.

TWO LARGEST U.S. WATER RESERVOIRS AT ‘DANGEROUSLY LOW’ LEVELS: Water supply at the two largest U.S. reservoirs— Lake Mead and Lake Powell— have dwindled to “dangerously low levels” due to the impacts of climate change, according to researchers at the United Nations’ Environment Program.

Both reservoirs are on the verge of reaching so-called “dead pool status,” or the point at which water levels drop so low they can no longer flow downstream and power hydroelectric power stations.

That could threaten water and power supplies for millions of people in the West, including in the states of Nevada, Arizona, California, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico, UNEP researchers said.

“The conditions in the American west, which we're seeing around the Colorado River basin, have been so dry for more than 20 years that we're no longer speaking of a drought,” Lis Mullin Bernhardt, an ecosystems expert at UNEP, said in a statement. “We refer to it as ‘aridification’ - a new very dry normal.”

UKRAINE NUCLEAR PLANT IS ‘OUT OF CONTROL,’ UN WATCHDOG WARNS: U.N. nuclear chief Rafael Grossi warned yesterday that the situation at a nuclear power plant in Ukraine is “completely out of control,” calling on leaders from Russia and Ukraine to allow experts to stabilize the situation and avoid a nuclear incident.

“Every principle of nuclear safety has been violated” at Zaporizhzhia, Grossi told the Associated Press in an interview. “What is at stake is extremely serious and extremely grave and dangerous.”

In the interview, Grossi cited violations of the plant’s safety and noted it is in a location where “active war is ongoing.” He also cited concerns about interruptions in the supply chain of equipment and spare parts to the facility, and said the plant has not responded to repeated attempts to deploy an international team of safety experts to visit the site,

“When you put this together, you have a catalog of things that should never be happening in any nuclear facility,” he said, adding that inspectors need to visit the site to carry out repairs and inspections and “to prevent a nuclear accident from happening.”

“The IAEA, by its presence, will be a deterrent to any act of violence against this nuclear power plant,” Grossi said. “So I’m pleading as an international civil servant, as the head of an international organization, I’m pleading to both sides to let this mission proceed.”

EUROPE WILDFIRES BURN THROUGH SECOND-LARGEST AREA ON RECORD: Wildfires burning through Europe this summer have burned the second-largest area on record just halfway through its typical fire season, according to data from the EU’s Joint Research Centre.

One dozen European countries have suffered fires so far this year, EU researchers found, with the total burned land area more than doubling the size of Luxembourg.

And countries including Italy, Spain, and France remain under extreme fire risk through at least September, when the traditional fire season typically ends for more southern countries.

Victor Resco de Dios, professor of forest engineering at Spain's Lleida University, told Reuters that the large fires seen last month in France and Portugal are "extremely unusual" and underscored the effects that climate change is having on the environment and on extreme heat events, which have pushed fire risks higher north.

"Today's fires in the Mediterranean can no longer be extinguished... Large fires are getting bigger and bigger," he said.

FREEPORT GIVEN GO-AHEAD FOR OCTOBER RESTART: Freeport LNG will be permitted to restart operations of all three of its liquefaction trains in early October under an agreement entered into with the Pipeline Hazardous Safety Materials Administration.

The company announced the consent agreement yesterday, which allows for the trains, two LNG storage tanks, and one LNG loading dock to come back online after an explosion rocked the terminal in June and sent it fully offline.

Freeport said it expects to be able to deliver approximately 2 billion cubic feet of LNG per day under the restart terms, or near its full 2.13 bcf/d full capacity.

It’s great news for the Texas-based LNG producer, and for its European customers, who have seen benchmark prices jump as high as $60 per MMBtu recently on lower LNG imports and dramatically reduced pipeline flows from Russia.

Freeport also said it was complying with corrective measures provided in the agreement, including additional training and facility inspections.

The Rundown

Politico Florida Power & Light operates an exclusive, invite-only lounge for lawmakers and lobbyists

Associated Press Cold showers, no lights: Europe saves as Russian gas wanes

Bloomberg The electrification of transport is happening in odd and interesting places

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Calendar

THURSDAY | AUGUST 4

1:00 p.m. The Department of Energy’s Berkeley Lab will hold a webinar to discuss a recent study evaluating residential storage and net metering reforms.

TUESDAY | AUGUST 9

12:00 p.m. The American Security Project is holding a virtual discussion titled, "Moving Mountains: Energy, Climate, and National Security in West Virginia."