• Southern California Gas Co., the largest gas utility in the country, and Clean Energy Fuels Corp. are suing the California Energy Commission for its alleged failure to promote natural gas, as state law requires. The two companies are both “charter members” of the California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition, which last week filed a separate lawsuit against the state’s Air Resources Board aiming to overturn the recent “advanced clean trucks” rule, whose goal is to put 300,000 zero-emission trucks on California’s roads by 2035. (Los Angeles Times)

• The Senate confirmed Mark Menezes as the deputy secretary of the Energy Department with a 79-16 vote. Menezes, who has worked as undersecretary for the department since 2017, was credited by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) with helping create the department’s cybersecurity office. (Bloomberg Law)

• A group of investors managing more than $16 trillion released its “Net Zero Investment Framework,” laying out practical steps for pension funds and others that want to align their portfolios with the goals of the 2015 Paris accords. The first phase of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change framework, which its creators say is the first practical climate change blueprint for the investment sector, covers listed equities, credit, sovereign debt, real estate and strategic asset allocation, while a later phase will cover private equity and infrastructure as well. (Reuters)

• As anticipated, President Donald Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act, which will allocate nearly $3 billion per year total to conservation and public lands upkeep, including $900 million to the Land and Water Conservation Fund and $1.9 billion to improvements at national parks and other public spaces. (The Associated Press)

President’s son Donald Jr. on Twitter calls for blocking Alaska mine in sensitive fishing area
Steven Mufson et al., The Washington Post

The president’s namesake and the vice president’s former top staffer both tweeted Tuesday asking President Trump to block a giant gold and copper mine from being built at the headwaters of the world’s greatest sockeye salmon fishery in Alaska.

Solving America’s Big Green Mortgage Dilemma
Emily Chasan, Bloomberg

Lenders are finding that residential mortgages are often one of the biggest line items on their books when it comes to carbon.

Low-income households are struggling to pay energy bills during pandemic
Ben Geman, Axios

A substantial number of low-income households are having difficulty paying their energy bills during the COVID-19 pandemic — with families of color and those with young children especially hard hit, according to recent Indiana University research.

Oil Jumps as Lebanon Explosion Sparks Fears Over Instability
Andres Guerra Luz, Bloomberg

Oil climbed to the highest level in nearly two weeks after an explosion at Lebanon’s main port rocked the capital Beirut, stoking fears over instability in the region.

BP built its business on oil and gas. Now climate change is taking it apart.
Steven Mufson, The Washington Post

With climate change bearing down on the planet and the novel coronavirus upending the fossil fuel business, one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies on Tuesday mapped out how it plans to navigate the next decade by radically cutting back on its oil and gas business. The London-based BP said that it will transform itself by halting oil and gas exploration in new countries, slashing oil and gas production by 40 percent, lowering carbon emissions by about a third, and boosting capital spending on low-carbon energy tenfold to $5 billion a year.

Permian Shale Chiefs Signal Growth Is Over, at Least for Now
Rachel Adams-Heard and Kevin Crowley, Bloomberg

America’s most prolific shale drillers are accepting a fate once anathema to an industry obsessed with growth: Drilling just to ward off production drops.

U.S. Energy Dept recommends granting partial retroactive waivers to refiners: sources
Stephanie Kelly, Reuters

The U.S. Department of Energy has recommended that some of the oil refiners that applied for retroactive exemptions from the nation’s biofuel blending law be granted partial relief, two sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

US senators aim to ease pipeline permitting after latest Keystone XL setback
Meghan Gordon, S&P Global Platts

US Senate Republicans from energy-producing states are pushing for infrastructure permitting reforms after a fast-track program came under court challenge this year and became the latest roadblock for the Keystone XL heavy crude pipeline.

Parched US shale patch crushes oilfield services sector
Myles McCormick, Financial Times

Schlumberger, Halliburton and Baker Hughes shift focus overseas as domestic revenues dry up.

Oil & Gas Majors Pivoting to Renewables in Pandemic: Q&A
Richard Stubbe, BloombergNEF

The global pandemic of 2020 has slowed down demand for oil and gas but provided a big boost for renewables, said Mona Dajani, partner and global head of energy and infrastructure at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP in New York.

BP Walks Away From the Oil Supermajor Model It Helped Create
Will Kennedy et al., Bloomberg

In the late 1990s, BP Plc boss John Browne used an oil-price slump to usher in the age of the supermajor, buying U.S. rivals Amoco and Arco to create a transatlantic giant. He kicked off a round of mergers that saw his company and four others dominate the industry — Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. in the U.S., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Total SA in Europe.

Army Corps moves to split utilities from streamlined permits
Ariel Wittenberg, E&E News

The Army Corps of Engineers is proposing to separate oil and gas pipelines from its streamlined permits for utilities — a move that follows a court battle over the program.

An Urban Planner’s Trick to Making Bike-able Cities
Laura Millan Lombrana, Bloomberg

Barcelona, along with Lisbon and Paris, added miles of bike lanes to the streets during the pandemic to encourage more commuters to cycle.

ChargePoint Raises New Round as Investors Rush to Electric Cars
David Welch, Bloomberg

ChargePoint Inc., builder of the world’s largest electric-vehicle charging network, raised $127 million in its latest round of funding as the company adds more locations in the U.S. and Europe.

Saudi Arabia, With China’s Help, Expands Its Nuclear Program
Warren P. Strobel et al., The Wall Street Journal

Saudi Arabia has constructed with Chinese help a facility for extracting uranium yellowcake from uranium ore, an advance in the oil-rich kingdom’s drive to master nuclear technology, according to Western officials with knowledge of the site.

Buckskin Coal Mine furloughs workers amid downturn in coal
Camille Erickson, Casper Star Tribune

The owner of Buckskin Coal Mine will furlough its workers in response to the weakening demand for coal nationwide, the company confirmed Tuesday. The furloughs come on the heels of the owner laying off 60 miners in March.

Hurricane, Fire, Covid-19: Disasters Expose the Hard Reality of Climate Change
Christopher Flavelle and Henry Fountain, The New York Times

Twin emergencies on two coasts this week — Hurricane Isaias and the Apple Fire — offer a preview of life in a warming world and the steady danger of overlapping disasters.

Climate Hawks Urge Biden to Shun Obama-Era Energy Moderates
Ari Natter and Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Bloomberg

Climate-change activists are pressuring Joe Biden to distance himself from former Obama administration advisers they view as either too moderate or too cozy with the fossil fuel industry, a sign of disunity on the eve of the Democratic convention.

Exxon Seeking Dismissal of Massachusetts AG’s Climate Lawsuit
Erik Larson, Bloomberg

Exxon Mobil Corp. will argue that a consumer and investor fraud lawsuit filed by the Massachusetts attorney general amounts to improper retaliation against the company over its views on climate change.

Shipping’s share of global carbon emissions increases
Jonathan Saul, Reuters

Carbon emissions from shipping rose in the six-year period to 2018 and accounted for 2.89% of the world’s CO2, a study released on Tuesday showed, amid growing pressure on the industry to bring levels down.

Extreme Heat Could Cause as Many Deaths as All Infectious Diseases Combined
Dharna Noor, Earther

If the world does not curb the rate at which it spews out climate-warming greenhouse gases, the death toll from extreme heat could nearly meet the current death rate of all infectious diseases combined, according to a new study from Climate Impact Lab, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research on Monday.

BP Thinks It Knows More Than You About Clean Fuel
Chris Hughes, Bloomberg

The oil major is slashing dividends and selling assets to fund the energy transition. Its promise to generate high returns as a result merits skepticism.

Is the Texas Tesla factory a tipping point? Linking mining to electric vehicle manufacturing will bring jobs to South
Jesse R. Edmondson and Emily S. Hersh, Houston Chronicle

Tesla’s announcement to build a new manufacturing hub in Austin for the production of the Cybertruck, Semi and the Model Y is the latest and greatest in what has been a growing trend to bring the electric vehicle supply chain to the southern United States.

Economic Impact Study of New Offshore Wind Lease Auctions by Boem
Feng Zhang et al., Wood Mackenzie

The offshore wind industry is poised for significant growth in the United States. This paper studies the economic impact of offshore wind activities as a result of potential Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) lease auctions this year as well as 2021 and 2022. Based on existing activities and optimistic policy assumptions for future offshore wind development, two million acres of federal waters in the New York Bight, California, North Carolina and South Carolina could be auctioned for commercial leases in 2020 and 2021. This could support 28 GW of offshore wind development and generate $1.2 billion in US Treasury revenue. Other auctions for lease areas in the Gulf of Maine and additional areas in California could also occur in 2022 which could generate an additional $800 million in US Treasury revenue and support 9 GW of offshore wind development.

Biden’s New Climate Plan
Meredith Fowlie, Energy Institute at Haas

With a high-stakes election on the horizon, the Democrats are working hard to shore up a winning policy platform. The Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force recently released this progressive page-turner full of recommendations for an incoming Biden administration. The first item on the policy agenda? Combat the climate crisis.