• Occidental Petroleum Corp. increased its cash bid amount for Anadarko Petroleum Corp. from 50 percent to 78 percent, promised to pay the $1 billion breakup fee that Anadarko would need to pay over its previous deal to be acquired by Chevron Corp. and freed Occidental shareholders from having to vote on the company’s acquisition. The more favorable deal terms closely followed an announcement from Total SA that it will buy Anadarko’s African assets for $8.8 billion, under a successful Occidental takeover of Anadarko. (Bloomberg)

• Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in India that the United States will not promise oil sales at cheaper rates to India because the oil is “owned by private people.” The United States recently ended its sanction waivers to states importing oil from Iran, which had been providing India with oil at a discounted cost. (Reuters)

• Under a new 20-year contract, the Interior Department will keep receiving free concert tickets at the concert venue at Wolf Trap National Park in Vienna, Va., despite the Interior Office of Inspector General asserting in September that the practice raises “ethical concerns.” The office says its concerns are still unresolved, while Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles, head of public affairs for part of the National Park Service, said the NPS determined that the tickets are permitted. (E&E News)

Pompeo ‘can’t rank’ climate change on list of national security threats
Avery Anapol, The Hill

ABC News’s “This Week” host Jon Karl asked the secretary where he would list climate change, following Pompeo’s recent comments tOil prices tumbled on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would sharply raise tariffs on Chinese goods this week, risking the derailment of trade talks between the world’s two biggest economies.hat it was not in the “top five.”

Ex-energy lobbyist tapped to oversee fish, wildlife and parks
Michael Doyle, E&E News

The White House today announced an intention to nominate Wyoming resident, former energy company lobbyist and Capitol Hill veteran Robert Wallace to a key position overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service.

Oil prices slump after Trump’s tariff threat against China
Ahmad Ghaddar, Reuters

Oil prices tumbled on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would sharply raise tariffs on Chinese goods this week, risking the derailment of trade talks between the world’s two biggest economies.

Carl Icahn Has Built a Small Position in Occidental
Scott Deveau and Ed Hammond, Bloomberg

Activist investor Carl Icahn has built a small position in Occidental Petroleum Corp. as the oil producer tussles to win a bidding war for Anadarko Petroleum Corp., according to people familiar with the matter.

FERC approves Transco’s 400 MMCf/d NESE project meant to supply NY markets
Maya Weber, S&P Global Platts

Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line won certificate approval Friday from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for its Northeast Supply Enhancement natural gas pipeline project, which would add 400 MMcf/d of incremental supply into New York markets and potentially place downward pressure on Transco Zone 6 pricing.

Occidental, Chevron Aren’t the Only Deal-Hungry Oil Drillers
Lauren Silva Laughlin, The Wall Street Journal

West Texas has become a big focus for drillers from ConocoPhillipsto EOG Resources. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates the region should pump more than 4 million barrels a day in May, helping make the U.S. the world’s largest producer of crude oil.

Court delays block Keystone XL pipeline construction in 2019
The Associated Press

An executive for the company proposing the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada’s oil sands into the U.S. says it has missed the 2019 construction season due to court delays.

Trump’s tariff threat puts US-China crude and LNG trades in jeopardy
Cindy Lang, S&P Global Platts

US President Donald Trump’s threat over the weekend to raise tariffs on Chinese goods took traders by surprise as Chinese oil refiners had begun increasing purchases of US crude and readying US LNG supply deals, in the run-up to final trade negotiations.

Rivals Vie for Mastery Over America’s Hottest Oil Field
Rebecca Elliott et al., The Wall Street Journal

Production from the region, which spans more than 75,000 square miles of West Texas and New Mexico, has more than doubled in recent years and makes up about one-third of total U.S. crude output, according to the Energy Information Administration.

EPA wants more information on CMP’s power line proposal
The Associated Press

CMP’s New England Clean Energy Connect would allow 1,200 megawatts of Canadian hydropower to reach consumers in Massachusetts to meet the state’s green energy goals. Supporters say it would reduce pollution and drive down electricity costs across the region.

Texas moves closer to regulating power brokers
Houston Chronicle Staff

The Texas House Committee on State Affairs approved the consumer protection measure earlier this week after it cleared the Texas Senate last month, according to legislative records. It is expected to go next to the Texas House for a vote.

Green New Deal Could Help an Industry Once Leery of Renewables
Brian Eckhouse, Bloomberg

An industry that didn’t exactly champion the rise of renewables may be a surprising beneficiary of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal: utilities.

The future of offshore technology is both simple and complex
Jordan Blum, Houston Chronicle

For decades, as oil exploration and production companies went farther and deeper into the world’s oceans, offshore technology meant developing, designing and building custom-made rigs and platforms that often were compared to spaceships, each unique to the particular drilling project and each costing many billions of dollars.

Puerto Rico Utility, Bondholders Reach Restructuring Agreement
Danielle Moran, Bloomberg

The agreement will give Prepa, as the utility is known, greater certainty in proceeding with the privatization of its power grid, according to the statement.

Ride-Sharing’s Future? It May Sit on Electric Motorbikes
Vindu Goel, The New York Times

Uber has made no moves toward motorbike sharing. But it has recognized the potential of cheap vehicles that customers drive themselves.

Can Bird build a better scooter before it runs out of cash?
Sam Dean and John Schleuss, Los Angeles Times

Bird’s valuation soared to $2 billion in a matter of months. But today, facing a crowded field of competitors, pushback and fees from local governments, and fundamental questions about whether any company can make money by releasing electric scooters into the wild and charging per ride, staying aloft is proving harder than it first appeared.

U.S. rejects Tesla bid for tariff exemption for Autopilot ‘brain’
David Shepardson and David Lawder, Reuters

U.S. trade officials rejected Tesla Inc’s bid for relief from President Donald Trump’s 25-percent tariffs on the Chinese-made Autopilot “brain” of its Model 3 and other electric vehicles, one of more than 1,000 product denials linked to China’s industrial development plans.

Virginian that wanted to buy Kemmerer coal mine blames busted bid on creditors
Heather Richards, Casper Star Tribune

The Virginia businessman whose attempt to buy the Kemmerer coal mine in western Wyoming failed this month blamed the busted bid on the creditors of the bankrupt coal company Westmoreland.

Presidential candidates join Nevada’s nuclear waste fight
Michelle L. Price, The Associated Press

Nevada’s senior senator, Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, has legislation that would bar the federal government from moving nuclear waste into a state without first receiving permission from the governor and local officials. Last year, Nevada’s two senators were the only sponsors of the measure.

One million species face extinction, U.N. panel says. And humans will suffer as a result.
Darryl Fears, The Washington Post

Up to 1 million plant and animal species are on the verge of extinction, with devastating implications for human survival, according to a United Nations report released Monday.

Arctic nations to meet amid tensions over environment, resources
Simon Johnson, Reuters

Top diplomats from the United States, Russia and other nations which border the Arctic meet in Finland on Monday to discuss policies governing the polar region, as tensions grow over how to deal with global warming and access to mineral wealth.

Judges Question EPA’s Lifting of Ban on Climate Super Pollutant HFCs
Marianne Lavelle, InsideClimate News

The oral arguments over the Trump Environmental Protection Agency’s policy on hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, indicate that even as the Trump administration remakes the federal courts, it will continue to face judicial resistance to its broad view of its legal authority.

The U.S. Electric Grid as a Platform for Infrastructure Modernization
John Di Stasio, Morning Consult

The U.S. electric grid we rely upon today started modestly well over a hundred years ago. Local power plants provided community lighting and powered public transportation.

Loss of biodiversity is just as catastrophic as climate change
Robert Watson, The Guardian

We have all assumed that nature would always be here for us and our children. However, our boundless consumption, shortsighted reliance on fossil fuels and our unsustainable use of nature now seriously threaten our future.

The EMP Executive Order — Where Were Bush and Obama?
William Graham et al., National Review

President Trump’s EMP executive order is an opportunity for the U.S. government and private sector to achieve national EMP preparedness quickly, within two to three years. But “the swamp” may yet win.

Plans to cut off public lands to oil, natural gas drilling and leasing are unrealistic
Kathleen Sgamma, The Hill

Like the Green New Deal, any new, radical proposal seems to warrant discussion, no matter how unrealistic, unlawful or politically unviable. So it is with Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) plan for a moratorium on oil and natural gas drilling and leasing on federal lands.

Unemployment, Labor Mobility, and Climate Policy
Kenneth A. Castellanos and Garth Heutel, The National Bureau of Economic Research

We develop a computable general equilibrium model of the United States economy to study the unemployment effects of climate policy and the importance of cross-sectoral labor mobility. We consider two alternate extreme assumptions about labor mobility: either perfect mobility, as is assumed in much previous work, or perfect immobility.