The Senate’s packed December

Presented by Williams

With help from Jonathan Custodio and Catherine Morehouse

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Quick Fix

— Attention is on Senate Democrats to finalize their $1.7 trillion climate and social spending bill, but it’s in a long queue of must do’s for the caucus this December.

— OPEC+ leaders are shooing away concerns over the omicron variant drastically altering oil demand, hinting the cartel will opt to stay its course during its meetings this week.

— Negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal are struggling this week, since conditions are vastly different from 2015, with Iran enjoying hearty fuel exports despite sanctions.

WELCOME TO TUESDAY! I’m your host, Matthew Choi. Félicitations to LCV’s Tiernan Sittenfeld for knowing Jennifer Granholm studied abroad in France (specifically her junior year at the University of Bordeaux, where a professor marred her transcript with an A-minus). For today’s trivia: What was the name of the New Mexico bakery where Deb Haaland had her first job? Send your tips and trivia answers to [email protected]. Find me on Twitter @matthewchoi2018.

Check out the POLITICO Energy podcast — all the energy and environmental politics and policy news you need to start your day, in just five minutes. Listen and subscribe for free at politico.com/energy-podcast. On today’s episode: How climate migrants are changing American politics.

Driving the Day

CLIMATE, DEFENSE, SANCTIONS, OH MY! With Democrats’ reconciliation bill out of the House, attention going into next month turns to the Senate, which is all but certain to alter the package over a number of remaining sticking points. Lawmakers still have to work out items that faced resistance among centrists, namely Senate Energy Chair Joe Manchin, including EV tax credits that prioritize unionized labor and a program designed to cap methane emissions. The Senate’s tax writers, led by Finance Chair Ron Wyden, also have to square their streamlined clean energy tax proposal with the extended credits that were passed out of the House.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer offered a timeline for the massive package Monday that aims to have it out the door by Christmas. Speaking on the Senate floor, Schumer said Democrats will huddle with the Senate parliamentarian this week following meetings held over the holiday week.

But it’s just one item on the laundry list of crucial items Senate Democrats need to address in December, which ME alumnus and POLITICO Minutes reporter Anthony Adragna rounded up here. Government funding runs out Friday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says the country could hit the debt limit as soon as Dec. 15, and Schumer is itching to get his China competitiveness bill done as soon as possible. The Senate is also currently tackling its annual defense policy bill, which ran into procedural hurdles Monday evening. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked ending debate without considering a number of amendments, including one on sanctioning the ever-contentious Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

“Considering sanctions on the pipeline that fuels Putin’s encroachment over Europe … is certainly worth the Senate’s time,” McConnell said from the Senate floor. “Yet the Democratic leader seems to want to put security last.”

The pipeline has caused the Biden administration a string of headaches, with the State Department contending the project that will deliver gas from Russia to Germany was far too close to completion to realistically shut down by the time President Joe Biden took office. Still, the project has garnered bipartisan condemnation, with Republicans in particular enraged that the Biden administration hadn’t done more to stop the pipeline.

The pipeline’s political thorniness is increasingly visible with Europe entering winter amid high gas prices. The German government urged Congress not to issue sanctions on the pipeline, Axios scooped this week, pushing back on Ukraine’s claims that it jeopardizes the country’s security.

An exasperated Schumer pushed back on McConnell’s arguments for holding up votes Monday, saying he was working fairly and according to schedule. Schumer pointed out in a statement on Monday night that the legislation already included 27 Republican amendments and had been drafted by Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and ranking member Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.).

“This is an example of dysfunction on the Republican side,” Schumer told reporters. “Leaders of both parties, when we’ve had bills like this, I’ve had to tell certain members, you can’t get certain amendments. Not everyone can have every amendment they want.”

Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine have more from our Congress team.

Around the World

OPEC DOESN’T WANT TO JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS: Russia and Saudi Arabia indicated Monday that OPEC+ won’t have to alter its output plans when the cartel and its allies meet this week, Reuters reports. The precipitous drop in oil prices on Friday amid fears of the emerging omicron Covid variant had prompted the group to slightly postpone two meetings this week, but prices recouped some of that lost ground on Monday after initial panic. U.S. oil futures bounced $1.53, or 2.2 percent, to close Monday at $69.67 a barrel after plunging $10 on Friday.

Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser called Friday’s slump an overblown reaction to the new virus strain and Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman said he was a “very relaxed person. I’m not concerned,” according to Bloomberg.

Russian deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said “there is no need for hasty decisions,” Reuters reports, tamping down speculation that the group could back away from a planned output increase at this week’s meetings. “We will additionally discuss with the OPEC+ countries the market situation and if any measures are warranted,” Novak said.

OPEC+ had already been looking at the market impact from the planned crude release by the U.S. and several other high-consuming countries — a move the State Department’s energy envoy Amos Hochstein said the U.S. would not be afraid to pull again. The cartel plans to discuss output levels for January on Wednesday and Thursday. Read more from Reuters.

BIROL REDIRECTS THE FINGER POINTING: International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol rebuffed the assertion that the transition to clean energy was the primary reason behind this season’s energy price crunch. Instead, he pointed to a number of factors, including weather and growing demand as well as “some of the deliberate policies of energy producers.”

Speaking at the European Hydrogen Week conference in Brussels, Birol said it was “wrong” to blame high prices on clean energy, Bloomberg reports, particularly with major energy exporters opting not to increase supply amid growing demand coming out of the pandemic and ahead of the winter heating demand.

Natural gas prices in Europe remain higher than usual, and Russia is resisting increasing output while state-owned Gazprom racks in record profits. Asia is also growing its demand for fuel, which has increased competition for supplies. Read more from Bloomberg.

IN VIENNA: U.S. negotiators are tussling with their European and Iranian counterparts this week to try to put the Iran nuclear deal Humpty Dumpty back together again. But as POLITICO’s Nahal Toosi and Stephanie Liechtenstein recently reported, they’re facing long odds, with the Iranians still refusing to deal directly with the Americans. The terms of the impasse have largely stayed the same: Iran says no compliance to the JCPOA without uniform sanctions relief and the U.S. says no sanctions relief without a return to compliance.

The allure of sanctions relief may not be as strong as it was back in 2015 when the JCPOA was agreed, with Iran failing to secure the amount of international investment it had hoped for and continuing to deal with sanctions outside of the nuclear deal. The country has also maintained a thriving petrochemical and fuel exports operation, which produces products that are harder to track than crude. And China has shown a willingness to buy Iran’s oil. Our NatSec team has more.

Around the Agencies

TIMELINE DISPUTE: Utilities behind the Southeast Energy Exchange Market proposal asked FERC on Monday to reject the requests for rehearing filed earlier this month by the clean energy industry and a separate environmental coalition. The power companies argued the requests should be automatically dismissed because the groups filed two days after the statutory deadline to file a challenge.

“The untimely nature of the rehearing requests makes their substance moot. Moreover, the arguments about the substance of the Southeast EEM Agreement have been thoroughly rebutted,” the utilities wrote in their response to the challenges.

MOPR ORDER GETS A CHALLENGE: EPSA filed a petition for review with the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Monday challenging FERC’s default order approving the MOPR replacement. FERC’s “failure to act ... undermine[s] the very markets it is legally required to regulate,” said EPSA CEO Todd Snitchler in a statement.

CHIP DRIVE: A multi-billion-dollar investment to expand semiconductor production will be needed to achieve the Biden administration’s ambitious target for half of new passenger vehicles to be powered by electricity by 2030, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters on Monday. Raimondo pushed the CHIPS Act, which offers incentives to companies to open chip factories in the U.S. through financial backing and could help offset the country’s reliance on foreign semiconductor production. The administration has called for Congress to allocate $52 billion for the bill.

“I’m telling you now, we will not hit those goals if Congress doesn’t quickly pass the CHIPS Act [funding] so we can get on with the work of incentivizing domestic production of chips,” Raimondo said, noting the commerce department has already collected economic data to guide investments if the bill moves forward. It remains idle in the House after moving through the Senate in June. Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are pushing to get it through the home stretch via conference committee negotiations. Steven Overly has more for Pros.

Beyond the Beltway

STACEY ABRAMS GOES SOLAR: Renewable energy technology company Heliogen announced voting rights activist and former Georgia representative Stacey Abrams and entrepreneur Phyllis Newhouse were nominated to join its board of directors once its merger with special purpose acquisition company Athena Technology Acquisition Corp. is completed.

Abrams, who has remained in the national spotlight after her narrow Georgia gubernatorial defeat in 2018, has been rumored to be considering launching another bid in next year’s race. Her support of Heliogen’s “mission to empower a sustainable civilization with low-cost solar energy that makes clean power more affordable and accessible” could fuel her climate agenda should she throw her hat into the ring again.

Movers and Shakers

— Navis Bermudez is joining EPA’s Office of Water on Dec. 6 as deputy assistant administrator for Strategic Initiatives. Bermudez leaves the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

— Angelo Villagomez is joining the Center for American Progress’ Energy and Environment Department as a senior fellow, where he will focus on Indigenous-led conservation efforts and ocean conservation. Villagomez comes from The Pew Charitable Trust.

The Grid

— “Hunt for the ‘Blood Diamond of Batteries’ Impedes Green Energy Push,” via The New York Times.

— “Russia’s Gazprom expects 2022 gas prices in Europe no lower than 2021,” via Reuters.

— “China’s Rising Ultra-Nationalism Complicates Xi’s Climate Ambitions,” via Bloomberg.

— “Europe Revisits Nuclear Power as Climate Deadlines Loom,” via The New York Times.

— “Striking US coal miners say windfall for private equity forced pay to be cut,” via The Financial Times.

— “Nissan, Burned by Experience, Shuns Bold EV Forecasts,” via The Wall Street Journal.

— “Oil-Guzzling Shipping Still Falls Short on Decarbonization After Climate Talks,” via Bloomberg.

THAT’S ALL FOR ME!