WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Tuesday, readers! This week, the Washington Examiner began publishing its 10-part series on how the One Big Beautiful Bill came together last summer. Our team has been digging into negotiations about clean energy tax credits, Medicaid, SALT, and so much more. We spoke with Senate and House leadership, cabinet members, dozens of lawmakers, and other big players in Washington.
Our story diving into what it took to phase out the wind and solar subsidies went live today, and we’ve featured an excerpt below.
Today’s newsletter also lists the five states where the administration is considering storing spent nuclear fuel, as it develops a long-term solution for high-level atomic waste.
Plus, we’ve got quite a bit of oil news below for you, touching on the latest pricing, OPEC+ decisions, and cash from Venezuela.
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.
A WASHINGTON EXAMINER DEEP DIVE INTO THE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL:
Over the last several months, the Examiner has been digging into all the ins and outs of how Republicans were able to get the One Big Beautiful Bill over the finish line, taking a closer look at negotiations over provisions like those ending clean energy tax credits.
We spoke with key players, including Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, to find out how exactly they were involved in constructing the final package.
Here’s an excerpt:
Hard-line Republicans in the House had won. They’d taken a sledgehammer to former President Joe Biden’s tax credits for wind and solar projects in their House-passed bill, and they had President Donald Trump’s full backing.
That’s when Sen. John Curtis (R-UT), a first-term senator and former congressman who succeeded Mitt Romney, started fielding phone calls from former House Republican colleagues imploring him to “fix this” before the Senate passed it.
Curtis is a unique Republican. A former registered Democrat, the affable Curtis is known for seeking bipartisan solutions. Unlike others in the GOP, Curtis contends that humans play a role in climate change. He founded the Conservative Climate Caucus and has urged Republicans to be more outspoken on environmental issues. He also doesn’t shy away from criticizing Trump and was one of the few Republicans who won his GOP primary despite a rival attracting the president’s endorsement in 2024.
Still, Curtis recognized he was the new guy on the block as he sought changes to the legislation.
“I found myself saying to the industry, to one of my colleagues who had asked me about it, ‘Don’t worry, I got this,’” Curtis recalled to the Washington Examiner. “They’re looking at a brand-new senator saying, ‘Don’t worry, I got this.’ Very skeptical.”
Curtis knew that the hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies were without a doubt on the chopping block. They were, after all, from the largest-ever climate bill passed and championed by Democrats.
But he also knew that “how they go away is everything.” Curtis argued that businesses would be “decimated” if they were not given time to adjust to ending federal subsidies. As it turned out, many Republicans quietly agreed with him, despite it meaning they were at odds with most in their party and, more importantly, Trump.
Read more from our team here.
FIVE STATES PICKED FOR NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE PROGRAM:
As President Donald Trump has pushed to quadruple domestic nuclear capacity by 2050 to meet the surging energy demand from artificial intelligence, there have been growing concerns around the amount of nuclear waste that the new projects will generate.
A reminder: More than 95,000 metric tons of nuclear waste from commercial reactors has piled up across the country, and the administration estimates that number could nearly double in the coming years.
For years, nuclear power plants, test reactors, and similar projects have primarily relied on temporary on-site storage for any contaminated radioactive waste material. This is largely the result of intense political opposition to the only other permanent plan put forth by the U.S. government for nuclear waste storage: Yucca Mountain.
Having no permanent solution for waste has blocked nuclear energy development in several states, including California, which has a moratorium on new nuclear plants in place until a federal permanent waste plan is established.
Trump’s fix: The Trump administration is attempting to address this impasse by funding the development of Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses in several states. The Department of Energy has selected five initial states as potential host locations for these campuses: Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Idaho.
The campuses would support activities across the entire nuclear fuel lifecycle, including fuel fabrication, enrichment, reprocessing, and disposition. Some states involved could even support reactor development, power generation, and advanced manufacturing.
The administration has said that the construction of these campuses could attract up to $50 billion in capital investment, create nearly 25,000 jobs, and generate as much as $10 billion in state and local tax revenue.
Read more from Callie here.
All the rest
PAUSE ON STRIKES SEND HOPE THROUGH OIL MARKETS: Oil prices extended their decline today as Trump downplayed the possibility of escalation with Iran.
In an interview with Fox News, the president did reiterate threats to bomb major bridges in Iran if a deal is not agreed to, but added “if I can avoid doing that, I’d like to do that.”
Some analysts have pointed out that traders are hopeful that the pause on military strikes will last, and allow for more normal flows of oil through the Strait of Hormuz and other choke points.
“There’s enough signaling that hostilities are on pause for now,” John Kilduff of Again Capital said, according to the Wall Street Journal. “I think there’s a realization that military operations aren’t necessarily the best way to go here, and the U.S. squeezing Iran economically has gotten currency again.”
Just before 3 p.m. EDT, Brent crude had fallen 4.72% and was priced at $84.15 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate had also dropped 3.95% and was selling at $79.35 a barrel.
OPEC EXPECTED TO PAUSE PRODUCTION HIKES THIS FALL: Sources have told Reuters that OPEC+ is very likely to pause its ramp-up of oil production for several months starting in October.
The decision comes as several members of the oil-producing bloc are facing difficult questions on how to meet demanding quotas amid the disruptions from the war in Iran.
Seven OPEC+ members will be meeting on Sunday to discuss the output target for September, and are expected to agree to increasing production by around 188,000 barrels per day. This is an identical increase to the ones for June, July, and August. Following September, OPEC+ is likely to put a pause on the output hikes for at least three months.
“There won’t be any further changes for the remainder of the year,” one source told Reuters. “The current production levels will be maintained until the new quotas come into effect in January 2027.”
U.S. COLLECTS $13 BILLION IN VENEZUELAN OIL: The president confirmed that the U.S. has collected nearly $13 billion from the sale of Venezuelan oil since the capture of former dictator Nicolás Maduro in January.
“$13 billion from Venezuela? I think even more than that,” the president told reporters aboard Air Force One yesterday. “We’ve paid for that war many times over. And that will happen with Iran also.”
The president said the U.S. now has a “good relationship” with Venezuela, adding that the money is being used to run Venezuela.
“We’re taking in a lot of money, billions and billions of dollars from Venezuela. That will happen with Iran too,” he continued.
Democrats have criticized the lack of transparency over how much money is being collected from Venezuela and how it is being spent.
ICYMI – EPA EXEMPTS DATA CENTER POWER PLANTS FROM ACID RAIN PROGRAM: The Environmental Protection Agency said that power plants that do not sell energy to the grid are exempt from Clean Air Act acid rain regulations.
The agency provided new guidance yesterday that said “islanded” power plants, such as those that provide power for data centers, are not subject to its acid rain program. The agency said this would allow for developers greater flexibility in where and how fast they can build new plants.
The agency’s acid rain program requires power plants to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which are primary precursors of acid rain.
RUNDOWN
Canary Media Want a home battery on a budget? Consider a portable, DIY system.
BBC The spotted lanternfly is ravaging the eastern US. Pet dogs are coming to the rescue
Washington Post The path forward for the clean energy transition
High Country News A ban on chainsaws in wilderness is performative, not practical
Continue reading...
[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
