Tangle - The Energy Independence and Security Act.

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

The controversial permitting reform bill. Plus, a question about how Isaac starts his day, and a special shoutout to three listeners!You can read today's podcast here, today’s “Under the Radar” story here, and today’s “Have a nice day” story here.Today’s clickables: Quick hits (2:45), Today’s story (4:15), Right’s take (13:14), Left’s take (8:12), Isaac’s take (18:02), Listener question (22:00), Under the Radar (24:01), Numbers (24:50), Have a nice day (25:40)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum. Some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about Joe Manchin's permitting plan. It's a piece of legislation he introduced. He was trying to pass very hard. He pulled last night. We'll talk about that in a little bit.

Before we jump in though, I want to start off with a quick shout out. We have three people who shared Tangle on social media, submitted their posts in our little raffle we ran last week and won their choice of merch from our online store. About 60 people participated. I put all the emails into a little digital wheel and then hit spin and I notified each winner and asked if they'd like to include a couple of sentences about why they read Tangle, which I want to share because they were really nice. I really appreciated it and I usually share criticisms. Emily from St. Paul, Minnesota said, Tangle pushes me to stop stereotyping and

actually understand people who think differently than I do. Sometimes I change my mind on issues and sometimes I don't, but I always finish the newsletter with a more nuanced perspective. Marty from Massachusetts said, as an independent that would love to live in an apolitical world, I don't have any go-to media source other than CNBC that I can trust. Tangle takes a rational, independent perspective on important topics and explains the left and the right positions dispassionately and clearly. Then I can reach my own point of view or just agree with Isaac. Sam from Richmond, Virginia said, I found y'all's newsletter and podcast and it was exactly what I was looking for. You and your team do a great job of giving me a deep and interesting dive into both sides of a relevant topic and then provide

that unbiased analysis of the issue I was after in my take. Thank you all so much for participating, for sharing Tangle, and for the kind words. Like I've said a few times now, we're ramping up for the rest of this year. We are really trying to get the word out about Tangle. We're focusing really hard on growth. So please, please, please take a minute to share the newsletter before the midterms get here. Pass the podcast on to friends if you're here because you're a regular listener. Whatever you can do, it's super appreciated. All right, with that out of the way, we'll jump into some quick hits. First up, new satellite images show a line of cars and trucks more than 10 miles long of people trying to leave Russia and enter Georgia. Some 200,000 Russians have crossed

into neighboring countries since Vladimir Putin mobilized military reserves. Number two, the Nord Stream pipelines that carry natural gas from Russia to Europe sprang three separate leaks, leading to suspicion of potential sabotage. Number three, jury selection began in the trial of Oath Keeper's founder, Stuart Rhodes, for his alleged role in storming the U.S. Capitol. Rhodes faces charges of seditious conspiracy for attempting to disrupt the transfer of presidential power. He and four other members face up to 20 years in prison. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell supported the Senate's bill to reform the Electoral Count Act, we covered that in a previous podcast, significantly increasing the odds the bill

becomes law. Number five, a legal group has sued the Biden administration in order to block its plan to forgive as much as $20,000 of student loan debt for individual borrowers. Number six, a little bit of a weather watch here. Hurricane Ian is predicted to make landfall as a category four hurricane and will hit Florida between Tampa and Naples this evening. That's Wednesday night. Current forecasts are calling for sustained winds as high as 130 miles per hour. Senator Joe Manchin's abandoned, at least for now, his proposal to speed up federal review of energy projects like the Mountain Valley Pipeline. It would take one project that's in my state, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, out of permitting processes, out of judicial review,

and have Congress put our thumb on the scale advancing the project immune from the normal permitting processes and judicial review. On Tuesday, Manchin requested his proposal be removed from a stopgap funding bill after it became clear it didn't have enough votes to pass. We are not energy independent in our nation. We should be.

And we also can be a leader in the world as being investing into the cleaner technologies. And basically, as we said, walk and chew gum at the same time. Last week, Senator Joe Manchin, the Democrat from West Virginia, released the long-awaited text of legislation that would speed up the nation's permitting process for energy infrastructure, including both fossil fuel projects and clean energy projects tied to Biden's climate change bill. The legislation has been named the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022. In order to get Manchin's support for the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to pass the proposal before

the text was released as part of a government funding bill. That stopgap funding bill needed to be passed by this Friday night or the government would have shut down. However, ahead of a vote to advance the legislation on Tuesday night, Schumer announced he was removing Manchin's legislation from the funding bill, apparently believing it did not have the 60 votes necessary to overcome the filibuster. That means the government should stay open, but it puts Manchin's legislation in doubt. Last week, Manchin released the 91-page bill and an 8-page summary of what's inside. He also published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, cited in a moment, making the case for the bill. Here are some key components. For projects that require

environmental review, a two-year time limit for those reviews to be completed. A 150-day statute of limitations for court challenges to projects that includes random assignment of judges to those cases. It requires the president to create a rolling list of important energy and mineral projects, including a minimum number of fossil fuel, non-fossil fuel, carbon capture, and hydrogen projects. It gives the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, aka FERC, jurisdiction to regulate interstate hydrogen infrastructure. It requires federal agencies to issue all approval and permits necessary for the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline to transport natural gas from West Virginia to

Virginia. For various reasons, many Republicans and a growing number of Democrats have spoken out against the legislation. It was apparently divisive enough that Schumer, Manchin, and Biden didn't believe they could get 60 votes in the Senate and decided to remove it from the stopgap funding bill. Today, we'll take a look at some arguments about what comes next from the left and right, and then my take. First up, we'll start with what the left is saying. The left is divided about the legislation. Some support it, while others worry about the process and its environmental impacts. Some argue we need to fast-track energy permits in order to ramp up clean energy.

Others say the process of writing the bill was shady and is being run by politicians funded by fossil fuel interests. The Washington Post editorial board said the bill was shady and is being run by politicians funded by fossil fuel interests. The Washington Post editorial board said passing Manchin's legislation should not be controversial. There should be no controversy, including Mr. Manchin's bill would improve the package. This is true even or especially if one's primary concern is climate change, the board said. Mr. Manchin's bill has stoked controversy because it contains a sweetheart provision that would benefit a West Virginia pipeline project that Mr. Manchin wants to get through. But that is not even close to the legislation's most consequential element. The fact that the bill would ease construction of power lines is. The nation needs to build a lot of

new infrastructure if it is to transition rapidly off greenhouse gas, heavy fossil fuels, and onto renewables. Aside from more solar panels and wind turbines, perhaps the greatest need is transmission, big wires that transport large amounts of electricity from power plants to towns and cities. The sun does not shine and the wind does not blow everywhere at the same time, they added. A grid packed with renewables will require transmission lines to zip electricity from the places where weather conditions are favorable to the places people live. Moreover, electricity will have to replace gasoline as the fuel for the nation's cars and trucks, power heat pumps and water heaters in people's homes, and run the stoves that will replace natural gas ranges, which means the

nation will need more of it and more wires to move it around the country. Yet, building things such as power lines is unreasonably difficult in the United States. The Manchin legislation would enhance the federal government's power to approve transmission lines it deems to be in the national interest, and it would make it easier to finance the new wires. In the New Republic, Kate Aronoff said Manchin's permitting bill is a failure of democracy. The bill would expedite the process to approve both conventional and renewable energy projects by streamlining environmental reviews, she wrote. It would also give more power to federal authorities who speed along priority projects,

including transmission lines, good from a climate standpoint, and fossil fuel pipelines, bad. Permitting reform has ignited what might charitably be called a spirited debate between so-called supply-side progressives who believe this permitting reform package is crucial for bringing clean energy installations online much faster and the rest of the climate movement. Long-time activists are understandably wary of any kind of expedited environmental review eating into hard-won projects and are worried about permitting reform disproportionately benefiting fossil fuels. Consider why this conversation is happening at all. Joe Manchin, a senator elected by fewer than 300,000 people, spent much of the last two years inflicting his

idiosyncratic fossil fuel-funded set of priorities on the rest of the country. Two guys, Schumer and Manchin, negotiated a deal behind closed doors. Both of them have accepted generous donations from the charismatic megaproject at its center, the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The details of that deal were worked out primarily by four guys, who released the details about a sweeping overhaul of environmental regulations only a week before they intend to pass them into law. Climate advocates do need to conduct a healthy debate around permitting reform. This is a deeply depressing stage on which to hold it.

In the Wall Street Journal, Manchin urged both parties to come together and support his legislation. We're in the midst of a global energy war, and the American people, Republican, Democrat, and Independent, are paying the price, Manchin said. Contrary to the radical agenda of Senator Bernie Sanders and his allies, who seem obliv. Contrary to the radical agenda of Senator Bernie Sanders and his allies, who seem oblivious to the reality of the global and domestic energy challenges we face, the common-sense permitting reforms contained in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022 will help cut costs and accelerate the building of the critical energy infrastructure we need. Some have said the legislation was crafted without Republican input, or that it

would make it harder for fossil fuels to be permitted. They are simply wrong. They aren't being honest about what's in the bill and how it came to be. Democrats and Republicans, along with leaders in the energy industry and stakeholders of all stripes, were instrumental in the substance of this balanced legislation, he wrote. These essential reforms have been advocated by developers of all types of American energy, oil and gas, electric transmission, these essential reforms have been advocated by developers of all types of American energy, oil and gas, electric transmission, mining, solar and wind, and more. In fact, it is the kind of balanced and all-of-the-above energy approach American needs if we are to defend this nation's energy security from those who seem hell-bent on weakening it.

Passing the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022 is essential, and not only because it includes smart ideas and proposals that both my Republican and Democratic colleagues have championed for years, but also because it will send a message to the world that the United States won't let anyone threaten or undermine its energy security. All right, that is it for the leftist saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. Many on the right want permitting reform to happen, but oppose this bill and the process behind it. Some criticize the details of the legislation, saying it won't come close to doing what it promises. Others hope permitting reform will now happen under a more normal process. inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. In AEI, Benjamin Zeicher said the bill was utterly divorced from its actual prospective impacts.

Subtitle A establishes a two-year target for environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act for major projects that require the preparation of environmental impact statements, designates a lead agency to coordinate policy reviews, establishes a statute of limitations of 150 days for court challenges of permits, and requires the president to designate for review a priority of 25 strategically important projects, Seicher wrote. Put those provisions together and the result is no actual reform of the real central problem. To wit, the litigation process under the NEPA, the Clean Air reform of the real central problem, to wit, the litigation process under the NEPA, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act, with which the environmental left and other opponents of conventional energy projects

can go to court and engage in obstruction lasting years or decades. Note that subsection J provides that nothing in this section supersedes, amends, or modifies federal environmental laws or agencies' obligations under those laws. Nothing preempts public comment procedures, and nothing preempts any other provision of law or powers, jurisdictions, responsibilities, or authorities of federal, state, or local government agencies, Indian tribes, or project sponsors under those laws, or affects judicial reviewability of federal agency actions, he said. Translation, the litigation business model for the environmental

left will continue. Subsection K establishes some time limits on agency actions following court decisions, but the blatant reality is that these limits on revised environmental reviews, for which there is no enforcement mechanism, impose no constraint upon the litigation process itself. The Wall Street Journal editorial board said the bill had a poison pill. The main problem isn't that his changes are too modest, though they are, the board said. Some of them would do tangible harm to U.S. energy security and constitutional federalism. Though it's received little attention, one section would rewrite how transmission lines are permitted, Though it's received little attention, one section would rewrite how transmission lines are permitted, and not for the better.

The 1935 Federal Power Act preserves state authority over transmission line permits, while the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission decides how to allocate costs. A transmission line that crosses a state affects its utility planning, yet states may disagree over whose citizens should pay for it. FERC today apportions the costs by economic and reliability benefits. If a line reduces electricity prices in Michigan, its citizens should shoulder some of the costs, he wrote. The Manchin bill would disrupt this delicate federal-state balance. It gives FERC the power to permit an interstate transmission line if the energy secretary says it promotes, quote, national energy policy, end quote, or the ability of,

quote, intermittent energy to connect to the electric grid, end quote. FERC could override states and approve a line merely because it reduces CO2 emissions or encourages renewable power. More transmission lines will encourage more renewable development, but this will merely make it harder for fossil fuel and nuclear plants to stay in business. The result will be less reliable and secure energy, the opposite of Mr. Manchin's stated goal. The Deseret News editorial board praised Manchin for pulling the bill. The United States has been in need of permitting reform for decades. Energy projects languish for years while legal challenges and environmental reviews drag on, irritating all but those whose livelihoods depend on challenges and reviews, the board said.

Although they have long wanted such a bill, many Republicans were less than anxious to vote for this version. They didn't like parts of it and would prefer to be able to negotiate a better version. Democrats had recently become fans of permitting reform because the same delaying tactics used against fossil fuel projects

are being used to delay green energy projects, but some of them were balking at Manchin's bill because it would help the other side as well. The only thing crystal clear in all of this is that this is no way to pass a bill of such importance, the board said. We understand the art of political horse trading is older than the republic, but the nation's ability to fund its government should not depend on passage of a bill that ought to be debated, negotiated, and compromised, separate from all other considerations. Now, we hope this can happen. Otto von Bismarck was the first to say it.

Politics is the art of the possible. Bismarck may say it sounds as if all sides ought to be able to come together to make a workable solution possible. Now that the bill is no longer attached to an unrelated funding plan, that might happen. Alright, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. There is a school of thought in compromise politics that if nobody's happy, you must be doing the right thing? I honestly find that idea pretty alluring, perhaps because my biases are mostly that neither political tribe has a monopoly on good ideas. I also see compromise politics play out effectively all the time. Yet in

this case, I just feel totally torn about what to think. For starters, I think it's worth noting some obvious stuff here. There are some Republicans opposing this bill as payback for Manchin's support of the huge spending blitz in the Inflation Reduction Act. Senator John Cornyn actually admitted as much in an interview with Politico. Given what Senator Manchin did on the reconciliation bill, it's engendered a lot of bad blood, he said. It's also worth stating plainly that the process for passing the bill was the kind of shady backdoor dealing I consistently oppose and tangle, and it has drawn the ire of lots of progressives. Stuffing it into an unrelated, must-pass spending bill? Yeah, everything about this stinks to high heaven. But there are also some good, principled reasons to oppose it for people of all stripes.

On the right, Benjamin Zeicher published what I can only really describe as an evisceration of the details of the bill in his AEI column, from the childishness of a demand that the president keep a running list of vague national priorities, to the backwardness of claiming that the bill would clear out legal backlogs on energy projects without creating a clear legal hierarchy to really end those backlogs. As Zeicher put it, Manchin appears to have wanted both justification for his vote on the IRA and was laser focused on getting approval for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, his top priority. Everything else was, well, just squishy. On the left, the fact that the bill would allow the continued proliferation of major fossil fuel projects seems obvious, and if you've been exhausted by Manchin's constant kowtowing to big oil money for the last decade, it's especially infuriating to see the one ambiguous part of this legislation being a bright

green light for a fossil fuel project in his own state. There are also some subtle changes to the Clean Water Act whose impacts are still unclear to analysts and politicians. The one thing everybody seems to agree on is that they look a lot like the changes Trump wanted. All of this is enough to scare off plenty of progressives. And yet, I can't really shake the feeling that this is just a huge missed opportunity. In this divided Senate, with this president, it seems unlikely we'll get a bill that gives and takes so even-handedly for both sides. For months, Republicans screamed from the rooftops about the need to speed up permitting to avoid an energy crisis here. Now there is a bill that at least intends to do that and take some tangible steps to get there. At the same time, it rapidly expands the infrastructure

for renewable energy Democrats want. Yes, it has some central planning I don't love. And yes, Manchin is clearly angling for something he can take to his West Virginia voters. But this is the Senate. These kinds of concessions are how things usually get done. There is simply no version of permitting reform that is going to pass without some senators slipping in pet projects and some people on both sides being pissed off about what they didn't get. I also just love the spirit of the bill.

If you can tolerate the breezy nature of such language, it is going to require this full energy attack including everything under the sun with a long-term preference for things like wind and solar and natural gas and nuclear. Sign me up. Of course, Manchin tried to simply jam this bill down everyone's throat in a must-pass spending bill. That, again, is not the best way to do that, I agree. So my fervent hope is one that aligns nicely with the Deseret's editorial board. I simply hope this is the first step toward an actual negotiation, amendment process, and eventual passage of something with elements that could please both the Benjamin Zikers and the Kate Aronoffs of the world. What would be a real shame,

and truly disastrous for our future, would be to let this legislation die for good where it is now. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from Tiffany in Gainesville, Florida. Tiffany said, when you wake up in the morning, what is the first news source you open? Great question, Tiffany. Typically, the first thing I do in the morning is get out of bed, stretch, get a glass of water, turn my coffee on. I try, try usually to avoid immediately jumping into the news, which inevitably gets my heart rate up for at least like five or 10 minutes. I actually wrote about this in my post on how I deal with the stress of the job of Tangle. After getting a minute of non-news invaded puttering around the house, usually the first thing I do is open my phone, which means I'll have push notifications from BBC or Apple

News and texts from various friends and reporters about whatever happened over the night before. In that sense, the very first news I get can be pretty varied based on whatever big headlines are breaking and what news outlets they're coming from. Once I sit down at my computer though, I do have a pretty regular routine to start the day. I open the Wall Street Journal first and I scan the homepage. Then I open the New York Times, scan the homepage, open the Washington Post, scan the homepage, open Fox News, scan the homepage. I like doing this just to get a sense of what the most mainstream outlets are covering with some ideological diversity in there. And then I dive into my email inbox of news newsletters, which is Axios, Morning Brew, Politico, Punchbowl News, 1440, and Daily Chatter typically are the big

ones that I read every day. And then from there, I just kind of go wherever my research takes me on that day's topic. So that's the general routine. Wall Street Journal first, mostly just because I think these days their news team, not their opinion team, but their news team is really one of the most balanced out there. And they use the most neutral language and they cover stuff I think is really relevant to a lot of kind of moderate middle voters, which I find a pretty interesting way to start the day. All right, that is it for your questions answered, which brings us to our under the radar section.

President Biden is pushing a new economic strategy to eliminate hidden fees charged by banks, hotels, and utility service providers. Biden specifically called out hotel processing fees, banks overdraft fees, late fees on credit card bills, and cancellation fees on customers who want to change their internet or cell phone providers. That's according to UPI. Biden is hoping to eliminate the fees as an anti-inflation measure, saying it would bring down costs for families. Eliminating bank fees alone would save taxpayers around $3 billion per year, according to some estimates. UPI has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. Since 1979, Gallup has been asking Americans whether

they were satisfied with the way things were going in the United States or not. And the average percentage of Americans who have said they were satisfied since 1979 is 36%. In April of 2022, the percentage of Americans who said they were satisfied with the way things were going was 13%. This month, the percentage of Americans who said they were satisfied with the way things were going was 13%. This month, the percentage of Americans who said they were satisfied with the way things are going in the United States was just 21%. The percentage of the emissions reduction from the Inflation Reduction Act that would not occur if the United States failed to expand its transmission lines is 80%, according to one estimate. The number of people who are on order to evacuate their homes in Florida to avoid Hurricane Ian is 2 million.

All right, and last but not least, I have a nice day section. This is a good one for me. A dog surfing is no longer the stuff of a miraculous Guinness Book of World Record. There are now enough four-legged wave shredders to run a full-fledged canine surfing competition. That apparently is what happened again at the Del Mar Dog Beach in San Diego County earlier this month when more than 70 canine competitors participated in the 17th annual running of this event. Competing in 10-minute heats, dogs were judged on their ability to ride waves, keep their balance on the board, as well as raw and very subjective, quote, fun factor. The Surf Dog Surf-a-thon doesn't just showcase unusual talents, but it also raises funds for the Helen Woodward Animal Center.

The Coast News has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for the podcast You know what I'm going to say ReadTangle.com slash membership If you're not yet a subscriber, please go do that If you are a subscriber or if you don't want to become a subscriber And you do want to help us out and support us The best thing you can do is spread the word

Please, please, please share Tangle Thank you so much, appreciate it We'll be right back same time tomorrow Have a good one Peace please share tango. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. We'll be right back. Same time tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Sean Brady, and Bailey Saul. Shout out to our interns, Audrey Moorhead and Watkins Kelly, and our social media manager,

Magdalena Bokova, who designed our logo. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our website at www.readtangle.com. Thanks for watching! award-winning book. Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried

history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.