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PRUITT OFFERS TRUMP BIRTHDAY SURPRISE AS SCANDALS GROW: Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt tweeted Thursday night that he will be“keeping w/ @POTUS’s promise” by stopping the Obama administration’s Waters of the U.S. rule. “I just announced to folks in Lincoln that a much more reasonable” WOTUS rule will be sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget Friday.

“Time to provide farmers & ranchers nationwide w/ regulatory certainty!” Pruitt added.

• His Best Marilyn Monroe: He ended his tweet by saying “Happy birthday, Mr. President!” Trump’s birthday was Thursday.

WOTUS has been a prime target for Republicans since it was proposed, being called a perfect example of EPA overreach by placing everything from drainage ditches and watering holes to streams and rivers under its authority.

• Step 2: Early Friday morning, the EPA sent what it calls “Step 2” in its plan to repeal and replace the regulation’s definition of what should be considered a waterway.

“Today, we are taking an important step toward issuing a new WOTUS definition and answering President Trump’s call to ensure that our waters are kept free from pollution, while promoting economic growth, minimizing regulatory uncertainty, and showing due regard for the roles of the federal government and the states under the statutory framework of the Clean Water Act,” Pruitt said.

• Wide authority: The rule would have made a wider range of stakeholders, from farmers to natural gas drillers, subject to the agency’s authority. Pruitt initiated the WOTUS review in July 2017. Halting the regulation was part of an executive order that Trump signed soon after taking office in January.

• The courts: Federal judges had stayed the regulation as a jurisdictional issue was hashed out in Supreme Court. The stay was lifted in February, but not before Pruitt issued a rule delaying its application until 2020.

He looks to finalize the rule by the end of the year after OMB finishes its review.

• More scandals, more concern: The birthday gift comes as Pruitt faces a growing chorus of concern from supporters on Capitol Hill over an increasing number of scandals facing the EPA chief. Even the White House said on Thursday that is concerned about his behavior.  

• Rose Bowl tickets: Pruitt asked an aide to call an Oklahoma energy consultant to get tickets to last year’s sold-out Rose Bowl game, according to a letter sent by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Democrats last week asked the Justice Department to begin a criminal investigation into Pruitt because of his use of EPA staff for personal enrichment, including trying to find a job for his wife.

CONSERVATIVE ETHANOL BACKERS RUN ATTACK AD ON PRUITT: The American Future Fund began an ad attack this week calling on Trump to fire Pruitt.

The group has ties to ethanol supporters in Iowa and has been called a “dark-money” group. It says its primary purpose is to “promote conservative free-market principles.”

• Top critics: The ethanol industry has become a top critic of Pruitt after he issued dozens of waivers to major oil refiners to let them skip blending ethanol, as required, so they could cut costs. Pruitt has been sued by the industry over the waivers.

• Mending fences: Pruitt was on a tour of farm states all week to express support for the EPA’s ethanol program, the Renewable Fuel Standard, and to try to mend fences with the farmers. Farm groups are also suing Pruitt over the ethanol waivers.

• Pruitt ‘must go’: Meanwhile, the ad calls on Trump to do what’s good for the nation.

“For the good of the country, Pruitt must go,” the ad said.

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TRUMP ENERGY DEPARTMENT CHOOSES NEW YORK TO LEAD $18.5M WIND PROGRAM: The Department of Energy announced Friday that New York State Energy Research and Development Authority will run an $18.5 million offshore wind research and development consortium.

“There is enormous potential for offshore wind in the United States,” said Timothy Unruh, the agency’s assistant secretary for renewable power. “Through this consortium, DOE seeks to support fundamental research to accelerate the development of affordable offshore wind technologies.”

The consortium is called a “cooperative innovation hub,” which will bring together industry, academia, government and other stakeholders to advance offshore wind plant technologies and try to reduce the cost of the power source.

The New York organization will help develop ways to install wind turbines off the U.S. coasts.

• Paris disagreement: The New York research organization is part of the alliance of states pushing back against Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change deal.

• State climate alliance effort: The New York state-run energy organization also is helping to lead an effort to encourage other states to fund green technologies to reduce U.S. carbon emissions in line with the 2015 Paris climate accord.

• Cuomo and Trump: Gov. Andrew Cuomo is one of the co-chairmen of the climate state alliance, with California Gov. Jerry Brown and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.

FEDS SAY UNCERTAINTY FACES TRUMP’S ALASKA OIL WIN IN TAX BILL: The Energy Department’s analysis arm finished a review of the president’s December tax bill on oil drilling in Alaska Thursday, saying crude oil won’t be added to U.S. production until well after 2030.

The Energy Information Administration looked at several ways opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, called for in the Republicans’ tax law, would affect oil production in the U.S.

• Lack of certainty: “Much uncertainty surrounds any projection of production from ANWR,” the energy agency said in the report.

• The great oil unknown: “The only well drilled in the coastal plain was completed in 1986, and the results have remained confidential. Federal resource estimates are based largely on the oil productivity of geologic formations in neighboring state-owned lands in Alaska and two-dimensional seismic data that had been collected by a petroleum industry consortium in 1984 and 1985.”

• Who will be president in 2031? Three estimates done by EIA, including low, average, and high, all showed that production from the Arctic refuge would not start until 2031, because of the time needed to acquire leases, explore, and develop the required production infrastructure.

A quick look at how Trump’s energy dominance agenda is faring:

NATURAL GAS EXPORTS DOUBLE FROM LAST YEAR: The Energy Department showed that natural gas exports doubled from last year, according to the latest data collected from March.

Exports of liquefied natural gas more than doubled in March 2018 from March 2017, and shipments went to 14 countries, the EIA said.

Nevertheless, LNG exports from last week to June 13 saw a drop, according to a report issued Thursday afternoon. Four shipments left from the Sabine Pass liquefaction terminal in Louisiana.

But Cheniere Energy is looking for a new Corpus Christi liquefaction facility in San Patricio County, Texas, and has filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for authorization to expand shipments.

EIA has introduced a new database of liquefaction facilities to keep track of the expansions.

MORE U.S. JET FUEL FLYING SOUTH OF THE BORDER: The United States exported 186,000 barrels per day of jet fuel in 2017, the 11th consecutive year of increasing gross jet fuel exports, the EIA reported this week.

“Almost two-thirds (62%) of U.S. jet fuel exports went to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially Mexico,” it said. “Relatively high domestic production and a growing international aviation industry have established the United States as a net exporter of jet fuel for the seventh straight year.”

COAL PRODUCTION DROPS: Coal production totaled 331.3 short tons so far this year, which is 1.9 percent lower than the comparable coal production in 2017, EIA weekly coal stats showed.

• Ebb and flow: Estimated U.S. coal production totaled about 14.9 million short tons this week. “This production estimate is 11.7 percent higher than last week’s estimate and 2.5 percent lower than the production estimate in the comparable week in 2017.”

RUNDOWN

Bloomberg Businessweek Exxon doubles down on oil

Financial Times Coal fading in developed world but far from dead in Asia

Washington Post More mean than green in the EPA press office

Times of India China, India forming oil buyers’ club

Wall Street Journal Why freight trains are getting longer and longer