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The Senate voted Thursday evening to confirm two Republican nominees to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, one of whom accused natural gas pipeline opponents of waging a jihad against the agency.

Robert Powelson, a member of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission who made the accusation against pipeline opponents, and Neil Chatterjee, a senior energy policy adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), were confirmed by unanimous consent.

The Senate just gave about as much attention to pushing through these FERC nominees as FERC gives to the impacts of fossil fuel projects they approve: Zero. This is a shameful day in shameful times for the U.S. Senate, David Turnbull, campaigns director at Oil Change International, said in a statement issued late Thursday.

Senators who vowed to stand up to President Donald Trump on climate change missed a major opportunity by confirming the two Republican nominees, Turnbull stated. The new wave of gas pipelines under FERC consideration would lock in dependence on fracked gas that we cannot afford to burn, while delaying our transition to clean energy, he added.

The five-member commission currently has only one commissioner, acting chair Cheryl LaFleur, and has been without a quorum since former FERC Chairman Norman Bay resigned in early February. FERC is responsible for permitting decisions on energy projects like natural gas pipelines and export terminals. The lack of a quorum has leftFERC unable to move such projects forward.

One nominee accused anti-pipeline activists of waging a jihad against the natural gas industry.

Simply put, FERC exists as a rubber stamp for the profit-driven whims of the fossil fuel industry, Food & Water Executive Director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement. The Senates action to put FERC back in business gives a shameful green light to advance a future of poisoning, polluting dirty energy in America.

Chatterjee will serve out the remainder of a term that ends in June 2021. Powelson, who also serves as president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, will serve out the remainder of a term that ends in June 2020. With a quorum restored, our first order of business is the backlog of orders and issues that are awaiting commission consideration, LaFleuer, a Democrat, said in a statement Friday.

The White House has officially filed the paperwork need for two other nominees: Richard Glick, who serves as the Democratic counsel on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; and Republican Kevin McIntyre, an energy industry attorney with the Jones Day law firm. McIntyre is expected to serve as FERC chairman if confirmed by the Senate.

As with other independent federal agencies, FERC cannot have more than three commissioners from the same political party. The commission is expected to have three Republicans and two Democrats if the remaining two nominees are confirmed.

Powelson made his controversial remark in March while speaking to industry representatives at a conference in State College, Pennsylvania, according to a State Impact Pennsylvania report.The jihad has begun, he told the audience. At the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, groups actuallyshow up at commissioners homesto make sure we dont get this gas to market. How irresponsible is that?

In the same speech, Powelson also expressed his support for streamlining the pipeline permitting process.

Dozens of environmental groups have called for reforms that would force FERC to consider the concerns of communities and the climate impacts when reviewing natural gas infrastructure applications. In May, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), reintroducedlegislationto create an Office of Public Participation and Consumer Advocacy at the agency. Private citizens have expressed frustration that participating in FERCs complex proceedings is extremely challenging, the senators office said in a news release.

Shaheens bill, The Public Engagement at FERC Act, or S. 1240, would establish an office that would directly participate in FERC proceedings on rates, service, and infrastructure siting to represent the interests of residential and small commercial consumers and create a Public and Consumer Advocacy Advisory Committee for the office composed of representatives from the national and state-based nongovernmental consumer advocacy community.

Communities being harmed by FERCs virtually indiscriminate approval of gas pipelines will keep fighting each project and fighting for a just future. Unfortunately, Senators failed to stand with them today.Oil Change Internationals Turnbull said.

Read more from the original source:
Republican who said pipeline activists were waging 'jihad' confirmed to energy agency - ThinkProgress

After the repeal and replace debacle there is, yet again, a very public crisis for the soul of the Republican Party. (As if we Republicans actually have souls.)

This existential crisis for Republicans boils down to this one question: Is it the primary goal of Republicans to limit the growth of government, or should Republicans let government grow, but at a slower speed than Democrats?

This seems like an oversimplified and flippant question, but to understand this question is to understand why Republicans fail to govern.

Democrats (who of course do have souls, as witnessed by how much they care for people, with other peoples money) have their issues of infighting, turf wars and conflicts over strategy and tactics. But they dont have a constant battle over the overriding principle of their party.

All Democrats want to increase the size and scope of government. Their internal battle is over the speed at which it should be done.

But almost all Republicans say they are going to constrain government and reel in taxes, spending and regulations. Yet when given the chance, many dont. And it doesnt take but a few defections to make their attempt to govern fail.

John McCain, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins refused to vote to repeal even the tiniest parts of Obamacare, even though all three campaigned on repealing all of Obamacare.

The Colorado version of this was of course the recent Republican capitulation over the Hospital Provider Tax (Fee). Because Republican senate leadership crumbled like a Dixie cup, we will now be paying over half a billion dollars more a year in taxes, and taking on some $2 billion in new debt without even being asked first at the ballot box.

And some of those grow government but at a slower rate than Democrats state senators may have to answer for it in next years primaries. We will see how senators like Polly Lawrence, who is running for State Treasurer, and Owen Hill, who is challenging US Congressman Doug Lamborn, fare as pro-tax Republicans.

So, after failures on Obamacare nationally, and forsaking the Taxpayer Bill of Rights locally, the Republican partys dysfunction is laid bare for the world to see. Youd think that would force a cathartic process to fix the party. But it wont, because there are two Republican parties.

The Republican Party functions more like a parliamentary system. It cobbles together two fundamentally different groups to form a fragile coalition whose primary purpose is to keep the other team out of power.

Think of these two parties as the Taxpayer Party, who wish to shrink the Leviathan, and the Manager Party, who like a good legal custodian wishes to run the machinery more effectively.

The Taxpayer and Manager folks team up well in the minority. Both agree the Democrats are taxing, spending and regulating too much, too fast. But they have completely different operating systems which make them incompatible when they get in the majority.

You cant simultaneously shrink and grow government!

This rift isnt new. Over fifty year ago Barry Goldwater wrote Conscience of a Conservative in hopes of pulling Managers to the Taxpayer wing of the party. Current Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake is making the same call in his daring re-write of the same title.

But all this really causes is deception. Its not really about moderate versus conservative Republicans as the media labels it. They are Macs and PCs different operating systems.

In order to win, especially in primaries, members of the Manager Party must appeal to voters who prefer the Taxpayer Party, so they talk like them. And we foolishly believe them. But theyre still Managers. But what if they didnt have to campaign that way?

Will Republicans ever officially split into these two parties representing their two very different ideologies? Before Trump, I would have said no.

But imagine how refreshing and freeing it would be for folks like McCain, Collins and Murkowski (and here folks like Sonnenberg, Lawrence and Hill) to be able to campaign on their true beliefs and values to a group of primary voters who value their style of responsibly growing government.

Time to call the divorce attorneys?

Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute, a libertarian-conservative think tank in Denver, and host of Devils Advocate on Colorado Public Television.

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It's time for the Republican divorce - The Denver Post

Wall Street Journal (subscription)

A Republican Failure Wall Street Journal (subscription) The Senate left town for its August recess Thursday, a week after the House vamoosed, and let's hope the Members get an earful from constituents at home. The Republican Congress has so far been a monumental disappointment and on present trend is ...

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A Republican Failure - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Thom Tillis at the Capitol on July 18.

Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters

Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and Democratic Delaware Sen. Chris Coons are co-sponsoring a bill that would allow a judicial panel to reinstate Department of Justice-appointed special counsels such as Robert Mueller if they are fired without good cause, the senators announced in a statement today. The bill would specifiy that special counsels "may only be removed for misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest, or other good cause, like a violation of departmental policies." (Donald Trump has alleged publicly that Mueller is biased against him and, of course, fired FBI director James Comey while Comey was supervising the investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.)

Tillis is not the only Senate Republican to have recently challenged Trump. Last week, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, and Arizona Sen. John McCaincast crucial "no" votes against the "skinny repeal" health care bill that Trump supported, while Judiciary Committee chairman and Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley announced he would not hold hearings to confirm a new attorney general until next year if Trump follows through on his threats to fire Jeff Sessions.

Assuming that all 48 Senate Democrats support the Tillis/Coons bill, which is being called the Special Counsel Integrity Act, two more Republican votes besides Tillis' would be required to pass it. (On that front, South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham has previously said he was considering introducing such a bill himself.) If it then passed the Housea big "if" given the lower chamber's more pronounced right-wing leanTrump would presumably veto it, which would mean two-thirds majorities in each chamber would have to vote for it to override the veto. The law would then probably face legal challenge from the president on the grounds that it unconstitutionally constrains his executive authority. And this is all assuming Trump decides he wants to fire Mueller in the first place.

Which is to say, we are a long way legally speaking from a court panel actually reinstating a special counsel. The fact that a Senate Republican is formally supporting Mueller over his party's president, though, is still significantand Trump will almost certainly interpret it as a personal betrayal requiring personal retaliation. Six a.m. presidential Twitter meltdown, here we come!

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Republican Senator Is Sponsoring Bill to Protect Special Counsel From Being Fired Without Cause - Slate Magazine (blog)

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice plans to switch parties from Democrat to Republican at a rally with President Trump on Thursday, according to a report in The New York Times, which cites three unnamed sources.

The announcement is set to take place in Huntington, West Virginia later in the evening. Were going to West Virginia tonight, by the way, Trump said at an event earlier on Thursday. Were going to have a very big announcement, which will be very exciting I think for the media and everyone else.

West Virginia used to be a Democratic stronghold, but the state has grown increasingly conservative in recent years and now votes reliably Republican at the presidential and state level. In 2014, the state legislature flipped from Democratic to Republican control. And Trump won West Virginia in November, defeating Hillary Clinton in a landslide with 67 percent of the vote.

Like Trump, Justice is a billionaire who ran for election as a newcomer to politics, and was elected in November 2016. During his campaign, he took pains to show he was no fan of Clinton. I cannot be a supporter of Hillary Clinton, Justice told a West Virginia radio station last August.

The West Virginia governors office did not immediately return a request for confirmation, nor did the West Virginia Democratic Party, or the Democratic governors association. A spokesman for West Virginias lone Democratic senator, Joe Manchin, declined to comment.

Manchin is up for reelection in 2018 and faces a primary challenge on the left from a progressive candidate running on a Bernie Sanders-style platform. The West Virginia senator also faces Republican challengers Evan Jenkins, a Republican representative who was once a Democrat himself, but switched parties in 2013, and Patrick Morrisey, West Virginias Republican attorney general. Manchin endorsed Justice during his run for governor.

Read more:
West Virginia Governor to Announce He's Switching Parties to Republican - The Atlantic