Trump's Victory Shatters Energy Landscape

by Anthony Adragna (Politico's Morning Energy) ... Biofuels: Trump said in Iowa in January that he wants ethanol volumes set under the Renewable Fuel Standard restored to statutory levels, but he has surrounded himself with RFS opponents, leaving the future of the program in his administration in doubt. Trump has received energy advice from Rep. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican who wants the program to end in 2022. And Trump is backed by refinery owner and billionaire Carl Icahn, who has been pushing hard to change which parties must comply with RFS, a move proponents say would be lethal. For two hours in September, Trump's website included a paragraph that not only seemed to support the change to the RFS, but used language nearly identical to that used by Icahn in discussing the subject. While the language was ultimately removed, it was there long enough to send set pulses racing in the oil and ethanol industries. Support for RFS reform in Congress tends to fall along regional, rather than partisan, lines, so the issue may prove tough to navigate.

TRUMP'S POTENTIAL CABINET: Donald Trump's transition team has spent the past several months quietly building a short list of industry titans and conservative activists for his presidential cabinets and with mandate to hire from the private sector whenever possible, POLITICO's Nancy Cook and Andrew Restuccia report.

For Interior Secretary, the short list includes: Lucas Oil co-founder Forrest Lucas; venture capitalist Robert Grady, a George H. W. Bush White House official with ties to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin; former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer; Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin; Wyoming Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R); and Oklahoma oilman Harold Hamm. Both Hamm and Grady are also considered potential picks for Energy Secretary.

Potential picks for EPA include: Myron Ebell, a climate skeptic who is running the EPA working group on Trump's transition team; Joe Aiello, director of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Environmental Safety and Quality Assurance; Carol Comer, the commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management; and Leslie Rutledge, the attorney general of Arkansas.

STATE INITIATIVE WATCH: In Washington, voters shot down an effort to pass a first-in-the-nation carbon tax. The measure, Initiative 732, would have imposed a carbon emission tax on the sale or use of certain fossil fuels and fossil-fuel generation, including power imports. READ MORE and MORE (Washington Post) and MORE (Fortune/Reuters) and MORE (Argus Media) and MORE (Bloomberg) and MORE (FoxBusiness) and MORE (Biofuels Digest)

Excerpt from Washington Post: The Trump transition teams have turned to Mike McKenna for advice on the Energy Department and David Bernhardt, former Interior Department solicitor general under President Bush, on the Interior Department. “Both are smart, canny individuals who understand the nuances of the departments for which they’ve been asked to provide assistance,” Scott Segal, co-head of government relations at the legal and lobbying firm Bracewell, said in an email.

McKenna, who is president of the firm MWR Strategies and who worked for both the Energy and Transportation departments, has lobbied on behalf of Dow Chemical, Koch Industries, Southern, GDF Suez and TECO Energy.

In addition, Myron Ebell, head of energy and environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, had headed Trump’s transition team on the EPA. Ebell has been a skeptic about climate change and has called many mainstream climate studies false.

On renewable fuels for vehicles, Trump has been generally supportive of ethanol, Segal said, but he wants to alter the renewable fuels policy to help refiners who have paid substantial amounts for tradeable credits under a complex scheme.

But Segal cautioned that “a Trump administration, given the nature of the campaign that was waged, has the freedom not to be doctrinaire. Since the campaign was run largely outside the strictures of traditional party policy, a Trump administration is in a sense free to develop energy policy to its own liking and based on facts on the ground as it sees them.” READ MORE