Top Stories

  • The Environmental Protection Agency is expected within weeks to issue a proposed rule that bars the federal government from setting limits on methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure, according to people familiar with the plan. The White House is wrapping up its review of the proposed changes — updates that may go against what some fossil fuel companies try to convey regarding their commitments to cut methane in a bid to market gas as a climate-friendly energy source. (Bloomberg)
  • George Luber, an official with the Asthma and Community Health Branch of the National Center for Environmental Health, intends to file a whistleblower complaint over his treatment at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after having raised concerns about changes the Trump administration made to the center’s Climate and Health Program. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility staff counsel Kevin Bell said Luber “has essentially been gagged at the agency,” placed on administrative leave and prevented from attending his office unsupervised. (E&E News)
  • A judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana banned the Trump administration from taking up the recommendations of the Royalty Policy Committee revived by former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in 2017 and disbanded upon its charter’s expiration in April. The judge sided with environmentalists who “identified a gaping hole” in the committee’s accountability, including the absence of a representative from the environmental community. (The Associated Press)

Chart Review

Events Calendar (All Times Local)

08/14/2019
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Hearing on Early Site Permit for the Clinch River Nuclear Site: Section 189a. of the Atomic Energy Act Proceeding 9:00 am
American Coalition for Ethanol Conference
08/15/2019
American Coalition for Ethanol Conference
08/16/2019
American Coalition for Ethanol Conference
08/19/2019
Nuclear Energy Institute National Security and Emergency Preparedness Summit
View full calendar

Understanding Gen Z: The Definitive Guide to the Next Generation

Based on nearly 1,000 survey interviews with 18-21 year-olds, Morning Consult’s ‘Understanding Gen Z’ report digs into the values, habits, aspirations, politics, and concerns that are shaping Gen Z adults and the ways they differ from the generations that came before them.

Download the full report →

General

Colorado’s Gardner Mixes Renewables, Fossil Fuels in 2020 Bid
Dean Scott, Bloomberg Environment

Gardner accepts global warming science, yet voted to scrap Obama-era environment and climate regulations. He backs fossil fuels, but also draws praise from conservation and renewable energy groups for efforts to strengthen the Land and Water Conservation Fund and providing tax incentives for clean energy, battery storage, and other energy storage technologies.

Trump energy speech in Pennsylvania sounded more like a campaign rally
Toluse Olorunnipa and Colby Itkowitz, The Washington Post

The president spoke for more than an hour, meandering between his prepared remarks and a campaign-style speech listing grievances and currying votes. He touched on his 2016 victory in Pennsylvania, his love of trucks, “fake news,” China, trade, immigration, the Green New Deal, windmills, the Paris climate accord, former president Barack Obama’s $60 million book deal, Iran, veterans and New York energy policies

Newark Lead Crisis Expands as N.J. Asks for Federal Help
David Schultz, Bloomberg Environment

Frank Baraff, the city’s spokesman, said the most recent testing of water from this second treatment plant, which services Newark’s western half, shows that lead levels have declined to below a federal threshold in recent weeks. Neither state nor federal officials have asked the city to provide bottled water to residents served by this plant, he added.

Oil prices fall on disappointing economic data from Europe and China
Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, Reuters

Oil prices fell on Wednesday on disappointing economic data from China and Europe and a rise in U.S. crude inventories, partly erasing the previous session’s sharp gains after the United States said it would delay tariffs on some Chinese products.

Oil and Natural Gas

2nd Colorado agency re-asserts authority on oil, gas matters
The Associated Press

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said Tuesday a law passed this year allows local governments to enact health and environmental rules stricter than the state’s but doesn’t weaken the agency’s authority.

Continental Resources CEO urges OPEC, shale oil output cuts
Liz Hampton, Reuters

OPEC and U.S. shale producers should reduce crude shipments into an oversupplied market, Continental Resources Chief Executive Harold Hamm said on Tuesday, as Iran sanctions and the U.S.-China trade dispute has roiled the market.

Oxy sees greater value from Permian Basin, US Gulf post-Anadarko acquisition
Starr Spencer, S&P Global Platts

A major aim of Occidental Petroleum’s $57 billion acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum last week is continuing to push efficiencies and value per produced barrel across a larger acreage footprint, not only in the Permian Basin, but potentially from the Gulf of Mexico, a top Oxy executive said Monday.

NextDecade revises timeline for reaching final investment decision on LNG terminal
Harry Weber, S&P Global Platts

NextDecade delayed by as many as three months when it expects to make a final investment decision on its proposed Rio Grande LNG export project in Brownsville, Texas, a revised time line included in an investor presentation posted on the developer’s website said Tuesday.

Shareholders Have No Love for Shale Companies
Rebecca Elliott, The Wall Street Journal

A broad index of U.S. oil-and-gas company shares fell last week to the lowest point since it was created during the early days of the shale boom in 2006, after drillers such as Concho Resources Inc. and Oasis Petroleum Inc. said while discussing second-quarter earnings that they were struggling to meet production expectations and stay on budget.

Utilities and Infrastructure

Power Blows Past $9,000 Cap in Texas as Heat Triggers Emergency
Chris Martin and Naureen S. Malik, Bloomberg

As temperatures in Dallas climbed to 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39 Celsius), the Electric Reliability Council of Texas issued an emergency alert, calling on all power plants to ramp up and asking customers to conserve. At one point on Tuesday afternoon, the region had just 2,121 megawatts left in power reserves, less than 3% of total demand on the system.

PG&E Makes Final Push to Stay in Charge of Chapter 11
Peg Brickley and Soma Biswas, The Wall Street Journal

Judge Dennis Montali is expected to rule Wednesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco on creditors’ requests to present their own restructuring strategies for PG&E, which filed for chapter 11 in January.

Company’s failure reveals biggest challenge for power grid
Chris Tomlinson, Houston Chronicle

Sometimes you can learn as much from a failed business as a successful one, and that is undoubtedly true of Houston’s now-defunct Clean Line Energy. Michael Skelly followed in the footsteps of many ambitious Houstonians. He challenged an entrenched industry with a newfangled business plan and a goal of saving the world. But his company’s failure says more about American society than it does his business acumen.

On the Brink of Blackouts, Texas Makes Case for Power Plant Boom
Chris Martin and Naureen S. Malik, Bloomberg

 The U.S. has become so awash in cheap natural gas and renewable power resources in recent years that electricity prices have, in some places, plunged below zero. This supply excess has forced massive, aging coal-fired power plants to retire, leaving a void that wind farms were expected to more than make up for in Texas.

Texas utilities poised to get ability to own energy storage assets
HJ Mai, Utility Dive

Starting Sept. 1, ​municipal utilities and electric cooperatives in Texas will be allowed to own energy storage facilities that sell energy and/or ancillary services without being forced to register as a power generator. The corresponding bill was signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in May.

Renewables

A Clean Energy Producer Complains About Climate Change Laws
David R. Baker, Bloomberg

Bloom executives, during a second-quarter earnings call late Monday, forecast flat revenue in 2020 and cast at least part of the blame on clean energy laws in California and New York, two of the company’s stronger markets. The laws — committing the states to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045 and 2040, respectively — have confused Bloom customers and caused them to delay orders, said Chief Executive Officer K.R. Sridhar.

A Tax Credit Fueled the Solar Energy Boom. Now It’s in Limbo
Daniel Oberhaus, Wired

Starting late this year, the value of the subsidy will fall for three years until it ends for residential solar and permanently drops to 10 percent for commercial solar. In late July, a bipartisan trio of representatives and one Democratic senator brought the Renewable Energy Extension Act to Congress, which would keep the tax credit at 30 percent for another five years.

Coal

Heavy metals found in groundwater near coal plants
The Associated Press

Environmental officials say heavy metals from coal ash have seeped into groundwater at a Duke Energy complex along Florida’s Gulf Coast. Areport by a consulting firm shows that arsenic, lithium and other contaminants were found in samples of wells surrounding the coal plants on Duke’s Crystal River Energy Complex.

Nuclear

Court rules for US in fight over Nevada plutonium shipment
Scott Sonner, The Associated Press

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled against Nevada in a battle with the U.S. government over its secret shipment of weapons-grade plutonium to a site near Las Vegas but the state’s attorney general says the fight isn’t over yet. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the state’s appeal after a judge refused to block any future shipments to Nevada.

Federal regulators approve sale of Pilgrim nuclear plant
David Abel, The Boston Globe

A year after the company that owns Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station announced it was selling the now-shuttered plant, the staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday approved the sale to Holtec International, a New Jersey company that has never decommissioned a nuclear plant.

Battle Emerges Over Nuclear Waste in America’s Oil Patch
Lauren Silva Laughlin, The Wall Street Journal

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering proposals to put up to 210,000 tons of nuclear waste—including the most dangerous high-level waste—at two sites in the Permian Basin, the booming oil-and-gas producing region along the Texas-New Mexico border. The temporary facilities would be surrounded by fracking equipment—shale oil drillers that pump water and sand into the ground at high pressure to break apart rocks and free up oil and gas.

Climate

New York initiative aims to eliminate conflicts between resource adequacy, clean energy goals
Robert Walton, Utility Dive

The New York Public Service Commission has initiated a review of resource adequacy programs to ensure that available capacity products align with the state’s renewable energy and emission reduction goals, rather than unwittingly keeping afloat older and dirtier resources.

Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives

On Energy Tax Policy, We’re Doing It Backwards
Jason Hartke and Heather Reams, Morning Consult

The United States has long had tax incentives encouraging domestic energy production, for everything from oil and gas to nuclear and wind power. We do this for many reasons: to ensure stable supplies of home-grown power, to make energy more affordable, and to incentivize cleaner, greener options.

Can Nuclear Power Be Saved?
Jonathan Lesser, National Review

It is highly reliable and emissions-free. It provides generation diversity, which can reduce the adverse effects of fuel-price shocks. 

Research Reports

Health co-benefits of sub-national renewable energy policy in the US
Emil G. Dimanchev et al., Environmental Research Letters

State and local policy-makers in the US have shown interest in transitioning electricity systems toward renewable energy sources and in mitigating harmful air pollution. However, the extent to which subnational renewable energy policies can improve air quality remains unclear.

Morning Consult