WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Friday, readers! We made it to the end of another busy week in politics. If you are in the D.C. area this weekend, Adams Morgan will be holding its Fall PorchFest, which will include more than 100 bands and 20 stages hosting live music throughout the neighborhood. Learn more about it here.
In today’s Daily on Energy, Maydeen spoke with the National Ocean Industries Association on the importance of getting permitting reform done in this Congress to help bolster the deep-sea mining industry.
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 Utah Gov. Spencer Cox spoke earlier this week at a critical mineral summit, where he called on the industry to build up domestic production to safeguard national security.
“You cannot build a modern electrical grid, advanced aerospace manufacturing, or a resilient domestic economy out of thin air,” Cox said. “And most importantly, you cannot defend this country without the critical minerals that are the bedrock of American national security.”
“If American minerals must still cross an ocean to pass through an adversary’s processing facility before an American defense contractor or manufacturer can actually use them, we do not have true national security,” he added.
DEEP-SEA MINING INDUSTRY SAYS PERMITTING REFORM IS KEY TO UNLOCKING NEW RESOURCES:
Deep-sea mining has the potential to unlock an abundance of critical mineral resources, but the industry says Congress needs to pass permitting reform to help move forward with development.
National Ocean Industries Association president Erik Milito told Maydeen that the Senate’s bipartisan permitting bill, commonly referred to as BAAJA, is “huge” for growing the offshore mining industry.
Milito said that permitting reform could help streamline environmental reviews, reduce litigation, and provide greater permit certainty. He noted that permitting reform could also make goods and services more affordable for consumers.
“We’ve been lobbying for it,” Milito said. “We’ve been meeting with both sides of the aisle, letting them know that this is good for everyone, and this could be the last chance. If it doesn’t happen now, it may not happen at all, and that means we could see a lost opportunity to address affordability for Americans.”
NOIA represents a number of sectors in the offshore energy industry, including oil and gas, wind, and ocean minerals.
Lawmakers will be returning to D.C. on Monday. They are set to hit the ground running on BAAJA and hold a preliminary vote on the bill.
However, it could be a tough vote. Climate groups in recent weeks have been pushing Democrats to vote against the bill, arguing that it would help to accelerate fossil fuel projects.
More on deep-sea mining: Deep-sea mining has been a growing industry and one that the administration hopes can boost the domestic supply chain for critical minerals.
Deep-sea mining companies have been seeking to recover polymetallic nodules, which are potato-sized rocks that sit on the sea floor. Those rocks contain a range of minerals, such as cobalt, copper, and iron.
Trump sought to prop up this industry through an executive order earlier this year calling on federal agencies to help expedite permitting, map out priority areas, and report on private-sector opportunities.
The Marine Minerals Administration last month announced the U.S. government’s first deep-sea mining lease sale off the coast of American Samoa.
The lease sale is set to happen on Nov. 19.
Milito said, “We’re at an inflection point for the offshore mineral industry. We’re in a position where the technology is there.”
“We have a lot of companies that are now competing in this space, and with the Trump administration recognizing the opportunity this gives us to compete at a higher level on a global scene, we are in a position to be able to lead as a country when it comes to ocean mineral exploration and development,” he said.
All the rest:
PENTAGON ADVANCES NINE WIND PROJECTS TO CLEAR PATH FOR BAAJA: The Department of War is allowing nine more wind projects to move forward in a bid to win support for the bipartisan infrastructure reform bill from Democrat holdouts who fear the Trump administration will continue to hold up renewable projects.
Two of the projects are in New Mexico, the home state of bill negotiator Sen. Martin Heinrich, Daily on Energy alum Josh Siegel reported.
OIL PRICES SET FOR LARGEST DROP SINCE PANDEMIC: Oil prices were set for the largest weekly losses since the pandemic, as prices held mostly steady today.
“A bit of unwinding of the war premium seems to be what’s going on,” Phil Flynn, senior analyst with Price Futures Group, told Reuters.
Prices plunged after the Democrats’ huge victory in the election raised hopes for a resolution to the conflict with Iran. But prices picked up later in the week on signs of ongoing conflict in the Strait of Hormuz.
RIG COUNT UPDATE: The number of U.S. oil and gas rigs rose by one this week and is up 56 on the year, Baker Hughes reported today.
But the oil industry lost jobs in October. The number of oil and gas extraction jobs fell by 600 in the month, according to this morning’s jobs report. The category of support activities for mining, which includes a lot of oilfield jobs, also fell by 200.
‘FOREVER CHEMICALS’ LINKED TO HIGHER RISK OF BREAST CANCER: A new study by the National Institutes of Health found that women with higher blood levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) were more likely to have a type of breast cancer where the cells do not have receptors for the hormone estrogen, also known as ER-negative breast cancer.
Those two chemicals are among the PFAS that the Environmental Protection Agency has sought to limit in the environment.
The EPA recently launched new efforts to prioritize research and development of technologies for PFAS treatment and destruction. The agency is also revisiting the Biden administration’s regulations on “forever chemicals.”
THIS YEAR SET TO EXCEED 1.5 DEGREES CELSIUS CLIMATE THRESHOLD: This year is set to become the second warmest year on record, with the chance of tying or exceeding the record from 2024, according to the European Union’s Copernicus climate service.
The annual global temperature for 2026 is expected to exceed 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level, meaning that the four-year average for 2023–2026 would also exceed 1.5°C, Copernicus said.
It added that October was the warmest on record globally and the third consecutive month with temperatures more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level. October was 1.75°C above the estimated 1850-1900 pre-industrial average for the month globally.
EUROPEAN UNION BACKS DELAY TO METHANE RULE: The European Union has agreed to delay its rule requiring oil, gas, and coal importers to report methane emissions, due to the energy-market disruptions caused by the war in Iran.
The Council of the European Union, which brings together EU government representatives, has agreed to delay the rule until January 2028, Reuters reported. The European Commission in October had proposed delaying the rule.
The European Parliament had voted for a three-year delay. The Commission and Parliament will now undergo negotiations to reach an agreement.
“There are significant pressures on global energy markets, which are driving up energy prices across the EU,” Darragh O’Brien, Ireland’s energy minister, told Reuters.
Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for LNG, said in a statement that the three EU bodies should agree to a three-year delay.
He said it would give “European buyers the certainty needed to sign the long-term contracts that support their energy security, rather than waiting on a year-to-year assessment.”
TURKEY LAYS OUT ITS COP31 PLANS: Turkey has laid out its plans ahead of the United Nations’ annual climate summit to transition away from fossil fuels to renewables.
Turkey, which is set to host COP31 in less than a week, revealed the National Energy Plan 2040 that outlined how the country plans to wean itself from coal and other fossil fuels, The Associated Press reports.
Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said that Turkey would transition from coal to renewables through electrification as a way to reach net zero emissions by 2053.
Coal was the country’s largest source of power last year, accounting for 33% of generation. Solar and wind accounted for 23%.
“When we reach 2040 we are going to reduce our emissions by 40%. This big change in electrification will make this happen,” he said. Bayraktar added that solar and wind energy would more than quadruple over the next 13 years.
COP31 is set to begin on Nov. 9. As we reported yesterday, the U.S. will be absent from the talks for the second year in a row since Trump pulled the country out of the Paris Agreement.
RUNDOWN
The Associated Press Uninsured and flooded out, a Colorado man worries if life will be normal again
Inside Climate News As Data Centers Move In, Iowa Residents Fight Plans for a New Gas Plant
Reuters How China’s clean-tech machine is reshaping the global climate fight
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
