Overnight Energy: Kerry, France clash over UN climate pact

CLIMATE DEAL CONFLICT: French leaders and United States Secretary of State John Kerry are disagreeing publicly about what kind of force a planned climate pact will have.

Kerry told the Financial Times Wednesday that the pact is “definitively not going to be a treaty.”

But Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister, said Thursday that Kerry might have been “confused.”

{mosads}”The fact that a certain number of dispositions should have a practical effect and be legally binding is obvious so let’s not confuse things, which is perhaps what Mr. Kerry has done,” Fabius told reporters in Paris, according to Reuters.

French President François Hollande joined in later Thursday, saying, “if the agreement is not legally binding, there won’t be an agreement, because that would mean it would be impossible to verify or control the undertakings that are made.”

The European Union also piled on.

“The Paris agreement must be an international legally binding agreement,” a spokeswoman for EU climate commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete told the Guardian Thursday. “The title of the agreement is yet to be decided but it will not affect its legally binding form.”

The Obama administration has repeatedly pushed for a pact that is not legally binding. That would avoid requiring Senate review of the agreement, and it would probably make it easier for other countries to pledge emissions cuts as well, officials have said.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest declined to respond directly to the French Thursday, saying, the binding nature of the pacts is “something that will be discussed at the talks, so I wouldn’t want to prejudge that from here.”

Read more here.

CLINTON CONTEMPLATES COAL: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wants to spend $60 billion to help coal country cope with the declining demand for its product.

In a six-page plan released on Thursday, Clinton proposed expanding existing programs — including research into ways to cut down on coal’s carbon pollution levels — as a way to help the industry.

She also called for protecting coal workers’ pension and health benefits in the face of company bankruptcies and encouraging economic development through grants and expanded broadband access.

Clinton’s campaign said the plan fits within her previously-stated climate priorities, which look to expand renewable energy such as wind and solar power.

“Hillary Clinton is committed to meeting the climate change challenge as President and making the United States a clean energy superpower,” the plan’s fact sheet says. “At the same time, she will not allow coal communities to be left behind — or left out of our economic future.”

Clinton won the endorsement of the League of Conservation Voters this week. At an event with the group on Monday, she promised to roll out a plan to help coal communities get by even as the American electricity sector moves to cheaper or lower-carbon fuel alternatives.

The plan is unlikely to win support in coal country, and Republicans sharply criticized it on Thursday.

“Hillary Clinton is Public Enemy No. 1 for coal miners and their communities because she wholeheartedly supports President Obama’s EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] agenda that is crippling their way of life,” Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Short said in a statement.

Read more here.

GOP CHAIRMAN SAYS HE’S A ‘SEMI-SKEPTIC’: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) told constituents this week that he is a “semi-skeptic” of climate change science, not a complete denier.

“I think the human component may actually be a small fraction of the contributing forces on climate change,” Smith, chairman of the House Science Committee, said, according to the Texas Observer.

He added that he does not believe an “infinitesimal” amount of human-caused greenhouse gases could change the climate.

Smith also spoke about his probe into climate science from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that challenges a key argument against climate change skeptics.

“The data is skewed. The data is biased. That’s not good science,” he said. “When I see government agencies skewing the data, that makes me very suspicious.”

ETHANOL GROUP TAKES ON DEM: Pro-ethanol groups are taking aim at Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who is working against the federal ethanol mandate.

Fuels America is launching an ad in Vermont accusing Welch of working with the oil industry on a letter to the EPA against the Renewable Fuel Standard.

“Remind Peter Welch to stand up for Vermont values, not oil companies and climate deniers,” the ad says.

Welch and other members sent a letter to the EPA asking regulators not to go too far when finalizing ethanol fuel standards later this month. An oil industry lobbyist offered input on the letter, Bloomberg reported last week.

The ad is one of a handful of ethanol ads on the airwaves around the country. The EPA has until the end of the month to finalize its RFS standards, a deadline that has kicked up a lobbying storm on both sides of the issue.

ON TAP FRIDAY I: Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will discuss clean energy technology and the Paris climate conference at a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace event.

ON TAP FRIDAY II: The Heritage Foundation will host an event on the fossil fuel divestment movement on college campuses. Scholars and oil industry experts will take part.

AROUND THE WEB:

New Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet this month with the leaders of his country’s 13 provinces and territories about climate change, a week before the United Nations climate conference starts in Paris, iPolitics reports.

The administration of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is formally objecting to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s proposed relicensing of the Indian Point Energy Center nuclear plant, 25 miles north of New York City, the Albany Times Union reports.

Federal officials are predicting a near-record strength El Nino this winter, and the weather pattern might already be on its way to easing the historic drought in California. The Washington Post’s Capital Weather gang has more.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Check out Thursday’s stories …

–Farm group spars with Rubio over missed water rule vote
-EPA chief must give deposition in coal lawsuit, court rules
-Cuomo blocks offshore natural gas project in New York
-Clinton releases $30B plan for coal country
-France to Kerry: Yes, climate deal will be ‘legally binding‘

Please send tips and comments to Timothy Cama, tcama@digital-release.thehill.com; and Devin Henry, dhenry@digital-release.thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @Timothy_Cama, @dhenry, @thehill