Analysis by Energy Workforce President Tim Tarpley
On Friday of last week, the Supreme Court refused to block the Biden administration’s new methane regulations from going into effect. Also included in this ruling was the rule requiring fossil-fuel-fired power plans to cut emissions of certain chemicals.
The action was in response to legislation filed by nearly two dozen states that asked to halt the methane plan due to their position that the time frame that the EPA laid out to comply with the new regulations was overly ambitious. The plan could lead to the closure of wells and the loss of jobs. The court did not give any reasoning to deny the appeal, which is fairly customary when it acts on an emergency basis like this. While the decision was expected by many, this ruling means that the EPA regulation on methane finalized in March will remain in effect. Other legal challenges are pending, but they all seem like long shots.
Presidential Race Remains Just About As Close as Possible
The US Presidential and House races remain about as close as possible one month before the election. The race for the Senate is really the only one of the three anybody feels confident about making any sort of prediction about. First, Harris retains a lead in the national poll for the presidential election but a statistically irrelevant one. According to Real Clear Politics, Harris currently holds a 2% lead in the generic national vote. This is within the margin of error and is essentially a coin flip. This lead has actually gone down since the debate. As we have discussed in this column, the swing states will decide this election, so the Real Clear Politics swing state average is far more important in giving us a sense of where this may go. That average right now is Trump up .1%. That is numerically as close to a tie as possible. This number has stayed consistent for weeks. To further highlight how close this is, of the top six battleground states, Harris currently leads in 3, Trump in 3, and neither has a lead of more than 2%, which means that none of their leads are statistically significant. It’s a flat-out tie.
The Senate race is a slightly different story. Mathematically, Republicans have always had the advantage, given the map and number of open seats in this election cycle. Current projections now have Republicans likely to win 50 seats, Democrats, 45 and 5 toss-ups. It is reasonable to assume that Republicans pick up at least 2 of those… so a 52-Republican Senate would be a good bet at this point. House is much closer. Current projections are 196 safe Democrat seats, 207 Republican with 32 toss-ups. While Democrats hold a 1.4% lead in the generic ballot, that is significantly insignificant. The likely best bet for House results is that it is close enough to follow the President. Whichever party eeks out a win for the President will likely take the House with them. However, we can expect that majority to only be a few seats, so it will be a fragile majority. If Republicans win with such a majority, we can expect a protracted Speaker’s race, as just a few members can withhold their votes to hold up the entire process. What does this all mean for us? It means that it is becoming more and more likely that we will not know who the President will be or who will control the House on election night; it may take days or even weeks to figure all of this out. EWTC will host a post-election wrap-up on November 21 to download what happened and where we go from there.
Tim Tarpley, Energy Workforce President, analyzes federal policy for the Energy Workforce & Technology Council. Click here to subscribe to the Energy Workforce newsletter, which highlights sector-specific issues, best practices, activities and more.
