Overnight Energy: House panel to start debating oil exports

OIL EXPORTS VOTE THURSDAY: The House will start debating whether to lift the ban on crude oil exports Thursday when a subcommittee takes up legislation to permit exports.

The Energy and Commerce Committee announced Tuesday that its energy and power subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), would vote Thursday on Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-Texas) bill.

{mosads}The meeting comes after more than a year of hearings, discussion and lobbying on ending the 40-year-old export ban, which is a top priority of the oil industry as prices plunge.

“The benefits of lifting the ban are many — it would boost domestic energy production, create jobs, and improve our energy security.” Whitfield said in a joint statement with full committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.).

The strongest opposition to exports comes from environmentalists who fear an increase in oil consumption and refiners, who predict that their prices would increase with new international demand.

Read more here.

ON TAP WEDNESDAY I: The House Science, Space and Technology Committee holds the first of many congressional hearings on the Aug. 5 mine spill in Colorado. Mathy Stanislaus, the assistant administrator of the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response at the Environmental Protection Agency, will be on hand to defend the agency. 

Read more about the congressional push on the EPA here. 

ON TAP WEDNESDAY II: The four commissioners on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will testify at a House Energy and Commerce hearing on the board.

Rest of Wednesday’s agenda …

The House Natural Resources Committee will mark up seven bills. On the agenda are proposals to expand energy development on Native American land and give more transparency to the development of mining regulations.

NEWS BITE: Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) is pushing the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to take stronger action on trophy hunting amid news that Walter Palmer, the dentist accused of killing Cecil the Lion, is going back to work.

Grijalva, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, argues in a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell that FWS has various tools at its disposal to crack down on illegal hunting, including listing African lions as threatened species and withholding trophy import permits from people convicted of wildlife crimes.

“U.S. state and federal wildlife conservation laws are stronger and more enforceable than those of any other country on earth, and it is wrong to assume that the same model of hunter-supported conservation can succeed in countries with significant governance failures,” he wrote in the Tuesday letter. 

AROUND THE WEB:

The Associated Press undertook an extensive investigation into the increase in water pollution spills that have come from the boom in oil drilling.

Australia’s coal industry has launched a “coal is amazing” campaign, which has been hijacked by environmentalists and led to international mocking, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. 

Aspen, Colo. is the third U.S. city to be completely powered by renewable energy, the Denver Post reports. 

 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Check out Tuesday’s stories … 

-Nuclear regulators drop cancer risk study
-Obama eats ‘bloody’ salmon with Bear Grylls 
-McConnell: ‘Battle continues‘ against power plant regs
-Only scientist in Congress backs Iran deal 
-House panel to vote on lifting oil export ban
-French president warns climate talks could fail 
-Coal group links Clinton to climate rule, cap-and-trade
-EPA faces grilling over toxic mine spill
-Oil industry braces for Obama’s final climate push 

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