WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Friday, readers! Fall festivities are in full swing in the D.C. area with the annual Oktoberfest happening at The Wharf this weekend. The second annual DC Coffee Festival will also host some of the area’s top coffee roasters.
Europe has caved to pressure from the Trump administration to release oil and diesel from its emergency stockpile in an effort to lower global fuel prices.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner energy and environment writers Callie Patteson (@CalliePatteson) and Maydeen Merino (@MaydeenMerino). Email cpatteson@washingtonexaminer dot com or mmerino@washingtonexaminer dot com for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman, a key negotiator in the House on permitting reform, said this week that he is “maybe a little more than cautiously” optimistic that Congress will be able to pass a bipartisan bill during a lame-duck session.
“The perfect permitting bill is the one the House and the Senate passes and the president signs into law,” he said during the C3 Solutions energy summit on Monday. “It’s not the permitting reform bill that I would write in a vacuum. It’s not the bill that [Democratic Reps.] Jared Golden or Scott Peters would write in a vacuum. But we have to have change from what we’ve got right now, and I think there’s at least 80% of the things that we can all agree on that will be better for the country going forward.”
EUROPE AGREES TO RELEASE OIL AND DIESEL RESERVES:
In case you missed it: Earlier today, European nations agreed to release 100 million barrels of oil and diesel to help curb global fuel prices.
G7 countries will release petroleum products from emergency stocks over the next four months, including a frontloaded substantial diesel release within the first 20 days. For the past few days, the Trump administration has been pressuring Europe to draw fuel from its emergency inventories to help lower prices.
The countries did not provide a breakdown of the volumes of oil, diesel, and other products that would be released, but the International Energy Agency will coordinate the process.
The IEA coordinated the release of 400 million barrels of oil from the emergency stock in March after the war in Iran started. However, only about two-thirds of those barrels have been released, so it’s unclear whether the new plan would include unreleased barrels from March.
The release of oil and diesel from Europe’s stockpile could ease the White House’s consideration of imposing an export ban on diesel, which would further tighten global supplies and raise prices.
The White House has also been weighing alternative measures to bring fuel prices down.
It was reported that the administration is preparing an executive order that is expected to include measures to expand the use of red-dyed diesel and tax changes to lower fuel costs. The order could be announced as early as next week, Reuters reports.
How have prices reacted? International and domestic oil prices both fell today on the news of Europe tapping its reserves.
“Prices are starting to fall,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol said, adding that he hopes it will be a “beneficial” step for the world.
Just before 3 p.m. EDT, Brent crude was down by 0.04% and was selling at $102.27 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate had also fallen 1.76% and was priced at $91.13 a barrel.
All the rest:
STATES AND CITIES SUE OVER DOT WEAKER FUEL ECONOMY RULES: Over two dozen states and cities filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Department over its decision to roll back fuel economy standards for passenger cars and light trucks.
Some of the states and cities include Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia, New York City, Chicago, and Denver.
The plaintiffs filed the suit in the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, challenging the DOT final rule that overturned the Biden administration’s corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards.
AMAZON MAKES NEW DATA CENTER COMMITMENTS: Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman wrote in a new post that the company will spend $1 billion over the next five years in communities that house data centers, with the funds going towards education, job training, energy affordability, water and energy preservation, and local priorities.
The company also plans to no longer use nondisclosure agreements with the government agencies it works with on their projects. They also plan to host open houses in communities where they operate to share information with the public.
The lengthy post by Garman also included “myths” about data centers tied to environmental, energy, and economic impacts.
Garman said there is an urgency to build data centers, noting that the U.S. is not the only country that sees the benefits of AI for the economy and national security.
HITTING THE ONE-YEAR MARK FOR THE CARBON SHIPPING TAX DELAY: If you recall, this time last year, the International Maritime Organization gathered to vote in favor of formally adopting a carbon tax on the global shipping industry, more formally known as the net-zero framework.
While members of the IMO initially voted to approve the framework and carbon tax in April 2025, the October vote was needed to put the measure into effect.
In a last-ditch effort, however, the Trump administration successfully delayed the vote by one full year as part of its campaign to kill the measure entirely. That was on Oct. 17 last year.
So with October in full swing, what happens now?
The IMO is not meeting this month to vote on the framework, as members are still renegotiating the exact terms. In fact, the IMO’s Intersessional Working Group on Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Ships gathered early last month for that sole purpose.
Members appear to remain divided over specific carbon pricing and financial mechanisms within the framework, and will meet again in November to aim for a final agreement.
Key negotiators are aiming to have a solidified text to bring to the Marine Environment Protection Committee’s next session in early December.
ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS PLAN TO TANK PERMITTING BILL: Several major environmental organizations met this week to discuss how they could convince Democrats in Congress to tank the bipartisan permitting legislative package agreed to this week.
Not only does a transcript of the call reveal tactics they intend to use, but that the groups didn’t want key Democratic negotiators Sens. Martin Heinrich and Sheldon Whitehouse to find out.
The details: The call, reported by Daily on Energy alum Josh Siegel, featured about 89 people from groups like the Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice, Defenders of Wildlife, Trust for Public Land, and more.
While the bipartisan permitting bill has been championed by both Republicans and Democrats, the environmental organizations say that the legislation includes cuts that go too far for the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Clean Water Act.
Participants on the call were candid that they wished to tank the bill, offering up tactics to do so.
“So if we’re able to kill this bill, then I think that gives us good leverage to make the argument that this emerging alliance between the center and right all around tech finance and energy capital is not a good path forward, and that we need to rethink the political math underlying all of this movement,” Erik Schlenker-Goodrich with the Western Environmental Law Center said.
Other strategies floated included holding legal technical briefings for congressional staffers, educational briefings for reporters, and partnering with climate hawk members such as Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
One theme made clear throughout the call was that many of the organizations didn’t want key Democrats to find out.
“I think most of us are opposing it, but I just, you know, just to be totally candid, like if we really want to engage in tactics, I don’t want them getting back to Heinrich and Whitehouse,” Brett Hartl with the Center for Biological Diversity said.
By Friday morning, however, those tactics were made quite public through Siegel’s reporting.
Hartl later told him that he had no regrets for his remarks, and instead accused someone on the call of betraying “all of us.”
You can read the full transcript here.
‘DRILL, BABY, DRILL’ UPDATE: The number of active oil and gas rigs fell by one for the week, bringing the total to 598, according to data released by Baker Hughes this afternoon.
The total count is still up by 49 rigs compared to this time last year.
Broken down further, Baker Hughes found that the total number of rigs active on land fell by two, the number of rigs located in inland waters fell by one, and the number of rigs offshore increased by two.
Simultaneously, the oil rig count increased by one, while the gas rig count fell by two.
THE WORLD’S TALLEST WIND TURBINE: An energy developer in Germany has constructed what is now the tallest wind turbine in the world, standing at nearly 1,200 feet tall with its blades.
The turbine, developed by GICON, reached its final height at the start of the week, reaching 365 meters – about 1,197 feet. This is less than 300 feet shorter than the Empire State Building and just over 100 feet taller than the Eiffel Tower. The turbine’s rotor hub is located about 984 feet above the ground.
The turbine’s height is expected to help generate more electricity, as it will utilize stronger and more consistent winds found at higher altitudes. GICON estimates it would allow the turbine to produce twice the energy yield of a conventional turbine with a rotor the same size.
The company also estimates that up to 4,000 wind turbines could be retrofitted to reach similar heights, allowing for wind farms to increase their generation capacity without building new turbines.
RUNDOWN
Washington Examiner Here’s what’s in the bipartisan megabill meant to allow the US to build again
Canary Media The USDA just made it way harder for farmers to get grants for solar
Forbes Billionaire Data Center Builder Insists There’s No AI Bubble
Continue reading...
[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
