• Mercedes-Benz intends to join California’s agreement with automakers to sell more fuel-efficient automobiles nationwide, according to two people familiar with the company’s plans. Last month during a meeting at the White House, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump pressured Toyota Motor Corp., Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and General Motors Co., which are not currently participating in California’s deal, to follow the administration’s fuel economy rollback, said four people familiar with the talks, but the executives at one of those automakers said the company plans to meet existing, tighter emissions standards for at least four more years. (The New York Times)  

• Saudi Arabian Oil Co. has officially asked global banks to pitch proposals for participation in its initial public offering, which the kingdom has said could occur between 2020 and early 2021, according to two sources. A third source said that the step is critical to an Aramco IPO, whose valuation some bankers and others have said should be placed around $1.5 trillion, rather than the $2 trillion that Saudi Arabia has floated. (Reuters)

• A Greek foreign ministry official said that Greece received a U.S. warning against hosting an Iranian oil vessel, en route from Gibraltar, but he added that Greece’s maritime authorities have not received a request from the tanker to moor in its waters. The United States has issued a warrant to detain the tanker, which it contends is intended to help the U.S.-listed terrorist group Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps by bringing oil to Syria from Iran. (The Wall Street Journal)

Bills for More Energy Efficient Federal Buildings Pick Up Steam
Dean Scott, Bloomberg Environment

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) in recent years weren’t able to get an energy efficiency package to the finish line. Portman now says the ground has shifted.

Cyanide from a steel plant trickled into Lake Michigan for days before the public was notified
Morgan Krakow, The Washington Post

Officials later confirmed that ArcelorMittal, a Luxembourg-based steel and mining company upstream from Lake Michigan on the Little Calumet, was responsible for the spill.

Romney says climate change happening, humans contribute
Morgan Smith, The Associated Press

During a speech at the conservative Sutherland Institute in Salt Lake City, the senator acknowledged that the position is rare among his fellow Republicans, but one that younger people seem to respond to more strongly than older conservatives.

Oil Steadies as U.S.-China Trade Progress Allays Demand Concerns
Saket Sundria and Grant Smith, Bloomberg

Oil steadied near $56 a barrel as hints of a trade detente between the U.S. and China, along with the prospect of monetary stimulus, buoyed financial markets.

Cameron LNG begins commercial operations
Sergio Chapa, Houston Chronicle

The first production unit at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Louisiana has started commercial operations.

Cameron LNG fined $41,600 for not reporting leaks
Chandler Watkins, KPLC

According to the United States Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, the first leak happened on Jan. 9, 2019. 

Freeport LNG begins Train 1 production on August 12: Osaka Gas, JERA
Yuka Obayashi, Reuters

The Freeport LNG project in Texas, United States, has started production at its first liquefaction train on Aug. 12 and aims to start commercial operation in the fall this year, Japan’s Osaka Gas Co Ltd and JERA Co said on Tuesday.

Oil Lobbyist Touts Success in Effort to Criminalize Pipeline Protests, Leaked Recording Shows
Lee Fang, The Intercept

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, a powerful lobbying group that represents major chemical plants and oil refineries, including Valero Energy, Koch Industries, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Marathon Petroleum, has flexed its muscle over environmental and energy policy for decades. Despite its reach, AFPM channels dark money and influence with little scrutiny.

Encana roars back to life with Permian Basin projects
Sergio Chapa, Houston Chronicle

Canadian oil company Encana is roaring back to life as the company prepares for a large round of horizontal drilling in the Permian Basin. The exploration and production company filed for 14 drilling permits on its Neal 39 leases in Upton County. Located about 22 miles northwest of Rankin, the wells target the Spraberry formation down to a total depth of 10,300 feet.

Standing Rock Asks Court to Shut Down Dakota Access Pipeline as Company Plans to Double Capacity
Phil McKenna, InsideClimate News

The challenge comes as Energy Transfer, the company behind the pipeline, is now seeking to double how much oil the pipeline can carry. The Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) passes under the Missouri River, the tribe’s water supply, just upstream from the Standing Rock Reservation.

Georgia-based Colonial sues contractor over Alabama spill
Jay Reeves, The Associated Press

Georgia-based Colonial Pipeline Co. has sued an Alabama contractor over a spill that threatened gasoline supplies along the East Coast three years ago. The pipeline operator contends faulty work by the Birmingham-based Ceco Pipeline Services caused a crack that spilled at least 250,000 gallons of gasoline in rural Shelby County in September 2016.

EPA signoff marks advance amid late permitting challenges for Mountain Valley Pipeline
Maya Weber, S&P Global Platts

The EPA action does not yet mean the project can resume suspended stream crossing work. The US Army Corps of Engineers would still need to approve West Virginia’s proposed changes and reinstate the general permit, known as Nationwide Permit 12, and the Corps actions to do so are expected to face further challenge from environmentalists.

MISO, SPP Empty-handed After 3rd Project Study
Amanda Durish Cook, RTO Insider

The possibility of a MISO–SPP transmission expansion must wait another year, as the RTOs have concluded their third coordinated system plan without recommending a single interregional project.

Minnesota utilities will study if the $2B CapX2020 grid improvements were enough
Mike Hughlett, Star Tribune

The study is being launched at a time when space on the region’s Midwest grid is already tight — even after a $2 billion transmission expansion that was completed just a couple of years ago.

How grid operators forecast weather and output from renewables
Iulia Gheorghiu, Utility Dive

While searching for a method to fully track the expected amount of solar and wind power outputs for real-time load balancing, technological and logistical improvements are still needed as more intermittent resources connect to the grid or are added behind the meter (BTM).

PG&E Faces Fresh Pain as Old Fire Claims Return to Haunt Utility
Mark Chediak and Joel Rosenblatt, Bloomberg

Seven months after a state agency absolved PG&E Corp. of blame for a deadly 2017 wildfire, the utility giant faces the potential of billions in new legal liabilities — and it’s unclear how it would pay for them.

Wyoming, Montana bankruptcy sale of coal mines OK’d by judge
The Associated Press

A judge on Monday approved the sale of three mines in Wyoming and Montana owned by a bankrupt coal company, helping to keep the mines open and allow repayment of debt. New Mexico-based Navajo Transitional Energy Co. will pay Wyoming-based Cloud Peak Energy Corp. $15.7 million under the deal approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross in Delaware.

Coal production falls sharply in Texas
Marina Kormbaki, Houston Chronicle

The state’s 12 active coal mines produced 25 million tons of coal in 2018, down nearly 30 percent from the 35 million tons in 2017, according to the Railroad Commission of Texas. 

Reclamation funds dwindle while Congress dawdles
Dylan Brown, E&E News

Industry has paid $9.7 billion in fees over the law’s 42-year history. Including interest, the AML fund has raised $11.3 billion and paid out nearly $9 billion.

Seth Moulton wants to harness the energy that powers the sun
Nik DeCosta-Klipa, Boston.com

His moonshot, if he can somehow mount a massive comeback in the Democratic primary race, would be to pour money into a different type of nuclear power that experts say would be both safer and cleaner — and nearly limitless.

Stripe’s plan to fund direct CO2 removal
Ben Geman, Axios

Experts in carbon removal methods, such as direct air capture and large-scale forest creation, call the announcement a milestone in corporate climate initiatives. The move is designed to go beyond their existing carbon offsets program.

Climate change could rain on Saudi Aramco’s IPO parade
Clara Denina et al., Reuters

In the three years since Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman first proposed a stock market listing, climate change and new green technologies are putting some investors, particularly in Europe and the United States, off the oil and gas sector. Sustainable investments account for more than a quarter of all assets under management globally, by some estimates.

There is no credible way to transport oil and natural gas without pipelines
J. Winston Porter, The Hill

These days, oil spills — particularly pipeline spills — are rare. Anyone who doubts that should consider that today’s techniques for maintaining pipelines — not only the TAPS pipeline but the entire 2.4 million miles of pipeline in the United States — bear little resemblance to oil and natural gas operations in the past.

Texas’ Power Price Spike and Designing Markets for a Carbon-Free Grid
Matt DaPrato, Greentech Media

The Texas power market is designed to play chicken with blackouts, but the real question moving forward is if the model is sustainable in a high-renewables power system.

Working Paper: Output and Attribute-Based Carbon Regulation Under Uncertainty
Ryan Kellogg, University of Chicago

Output-based carbon regulations—such as fuel economy standards and the rate- based standards in the Clean Power Plan—create well-known incentives to inefficiently increase output. Similar distortions are created by attribute-based regulations. 

Air pollution exposure associates with increased risk of neonatal jaundice
Liqiang Zhang, Nature Communications

The jaundice−pollution relationship is not affected by top-of-atmosphere incident solar irradiance and atmospheric visibility. Improving air quality may therefore be key to lowering the neonatal jaundice risk.