House China hawks are building legislation to shore up U.S. supplies of the minerals needed for wind, solar and batteries, Nick writes.

Why it matters: The next big energy and climate legislation could take a national security frame, born of the Hill's growing bipartisan anti-China sentiment.

• The House Select Committee on China's new "critical minerals" working group, led by Reps. Rob Wittman and Kathy Castor, is an important launching point.

Driving the news: Both lawmakers told Nick that it's an opportunity to build bipartisan ideas — like Defense Production Act investments — into a broader suite of policies to secure supply chains for batteries, energy and defense applications.

• Top of mind for Wittman is an environmental permitting overhaul to help expand domestic mining and rare earth production.
• He also wants the Pentagon, using the DPA, to strategically stockpile key minerals, pointing to Chinese export controls on gallium, germanium and graphite — a crucial battery material.
• "You have to look at things in reforming the regulatory structures so we can actually get back in the mining business," he said. "And then when you get back to mining, how much of that mining volume needs to go towards a national stockpile for strategic purposes?"

Zoom in: Wittman also has his eyes on seabed mining and expanding agreements with friendly minerals giants like Australia to "fill the gap" in U.S. supply chains.

• The working group could flesh out some of the ideas that the committee detailed in its report in December. They include creating a "resilient resource reserve" and boosting overseas mining development investments.
• Broadly, Wittman acknowledges that the U.S. probably won't be able to cut off China entirely.
• "We want to decouple strategically as much as we can in areas where we know it's going to be critical to our manufacturing capability and our national security," Wittman said. "We're not going to be able to completely decouple."

Between the lines: Expect the NDAA to be a venue for some of these ideas in lieu of a larger legislative package.

• Already, this year's House bill has provisions aimed at bolstering U.S. domestic production of batteries and their component minerals.

The other side: Castor, like other Democrats, isn't willing to give a full-throated endorsement to new domestic mining.

• "In the right places with the right environmental protocols? Maybe," she said. "Recycling will be a very important part of that."

Hill Democrats and EU lawmakers want the International Energy Agency to draw up global standards for measuring methane emissions from oil and gas, Nick writes.

Why it matters: Methane is a mega greenhouse gas, but measuring it accurately in the oil and gas supply chain and reducing leaks have been longstanding regulatory challenges.

Driving the news: The lawmakers want IEA to create an "international standard for measurement, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MMRV) of methane emissions and a methane emissions intensity index," per a letter seen by Axios.

• The idea is to help countries develop more stringent methane standards.
• The letter also asks IEA to work with oil and gas companies and financial institutions to figure out how to reduce methane emissions in low- and middle-income countries.
• U.S. signatories include Julia Brownley, Summer Lee and Sean Casten.

Our thought bubble: These specific requests on methane offer an interesting side-by-side with the GOP's ongoing probe into the IEA's methodologies.

☢️ 1. Enrich me: DOE is out with a request for proposals to buy domestic low-enriched uranium using the $2.7 billion recently provided by Congress.

❌ 2. Stop the pause: A federal judge Monday blocked the Biden administration's LNG pause, leaving it on uncertain ground. Axios Generate's Ben Geman has more.

😎 3. Chill about AI: Here's what Bill Gates has to say about AI power demand: "Tech companies are the people willing to pay a premium and to help bootstrap green energy capacity. It's, in a sense, the least price-sensitive."

• Read more here on the Breakthrough Energy Summit from our colleague Alan Neuhauser.