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OIL PRICES AND TRUMP’S DEALINGS WITH IRAN HOVER OVER U.N. MEETING: The United Nations General Assembly kicks into high gear this week, and the questions looming over the major international gathering in New York are what President Trump’s message will be and whether he’ll engage on climate change.

Many of the leaders attending the meeting are expected to raise the issue, as many fear countries are lagging behind on their commitments to the 2015 Paris climate change agreement.

But is it yet to be seen what the Trump administration brings to the meeting.

A year after ‘Rocket Man’: Media reports suggest Trump will most likely turn his sights to national security matters, as he did last year in his “Rocket Man” speech, which targeted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s nuclear aspirations.

Trump’s tough talk was also accompanied by his administration’s general opposition to the U.N.’s multilateral efforts, like the Paris accord, where Trump vowed to keep America first.

Climate change could be overshadowed by Iran: This year, however, climate change will likely be overshadowed by Trump’s dealings with Iran, including the question of whether U.S. sanctions on Iran will raise the global price of oil ahead of the mid-term elections.

Trump is expected to meet with members of the U.N. Security Council during the general assembly. But it is unclear if the administration will actually meet for talks with Iran.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday that President Trump is willing to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during the major U.N. meeting.

“I think the president’s been pretty clear about that. He’s happy to talk with folks at any time,” Pompeo told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“If there’s a constructive dialogue to be had, let’s get after it,” Pompeo said.

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TRACE AMOUNTS OF ARSENIC IN WATER AFTER COAL ASH SPILL, BUT NO EFFECTS DOWNSTREAM: Coal waste from one of Duke Energy’s coal plants is leaking some heavy metals and arsenic into the Cape Fear River as of Monday morning, but so far it is not flowing downstream, the utility company confirmed.

Duke Energy said the dam break on one of the power plant’s coal ash containment ponds last week is causing some greyish discoloration in the river’s water near the power plant, while testing showed that small amounts of toxic chemicals like arsenic have increased only slightly in the water.

The arsenic and heavy metals in the water are “well within the rigorous state water quality standards in place to protect the environment,” the company said. Arsenic tested at 1.11 thousandths of a milligram per liter of water, which is far below the state clean water standards of 50 thousandths of a milligram, according to local reports..

The dam break at the Sutton Power Plant is the latest in the aftermath of severe flooding impacting North Carolina after Hurricane Florence made landfall over a week ago.

The incredible amount of storm surge and rainfall the storm brought is continuing to pose real threats well after the hurricane dissipated into a tropical storm.

Water groups are skeptical of Duke Energy’s water testing, saying it was all done in-house and should be questioned.

“Keep in mind, Duke sent their samples to their in-house lab,” Kemp Burdette of Cape Fear River Watch told the News & Observer on Sunday. “Until you have a third-party analysis, any analysis should be taken with a grain of salt.”

Burdette’s group and the state’s Department of Environmental Quality have both taken their own water samples and are awaiting results of their own testing, according to the newspaper.  

The state agency said it hopes to have its results in by the middle of the week.  “It takes time to properly conduct the analysis of samples,” said Bridget Munger, a spokeswoman for the state agency.

IRAN: TRUMP TWEETS AT ROOT OF HIGH OIL PRICES: Iran’s OPEC representative, Hossein Kazempour, speaking at the cartel’s joint ministerial meeting in Algeria Sunday, blamed recent oil price increases on President Trump’s tweeting, and not the global oil cartel.

“The Trump administration is pushing politics into the OPEC, and is aiming at spreading the members and securing their own interests by getting lower prices and so forth,” Kazempour said in an interview with CNBC.

What’s at stake from the meeting: Josh mapped out the issues facing OPEC as Trump attempted to use tweets to influence the cartel.

The current global oil price is hovering around $80 a barrel for the first time since May, as investors bet that OPEC will be unable to plug a growing loss of oil from Iran because of Trump’s sanctions on the country.

U.S. gasoline prices, influenced heavily by the world oil price, have stayed steady at about $2.85 on average over recent weeks. But Trump appears to be hedging against that changing. He engaged in Twitter diplomacy on Thursday, demanding that “the OPEC monopoly must get prices down now!”

What can Trump really do? Trump’s had success tweet-bullying OPEC before. But it is up in the air whether the strategy worked this time.

“The president is clearly sensitive to the problems that come along with $80 per barrel oil,” Richard Nephew, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, told the Washington Examiner. “$80 equates in his mind to $3 a gallon at the pump. For him, and the people who voted for him, that is a real problem. So when it creeps up, he rattles some cages.”

Could OPEC act to cut oil prices? Experts say it’s uncertain how much more OPEC could do to appease Trump when it meets with nonmember countries, including megaproducer Russia, in Algeria on Sunday.

OPEC — working with Russia — already agreed in June to increase oil production by a collective 1 million barrels per day. Because that target is divvied up proportionately to all members of the agreement, even those who don’t have the ability to boost production, the real increase target was lower, about 600,000 to 700,000 barrels a day.

COAL REMAINS TOP SUPPLIER OF ELECTRICITY GLOBALLY, SAYS AGENCY: Coal is providing the lion’s share of energy globally, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) reported on Monday.

Coal provided 38 percent of the world’s electricity in 2017, the report showed. That is 64 percent more than natural gas, which still ranks second in energy production worldwide, according to IER officials.  

Asia and Africa are the leaders in new coal investment, the officials said. Nations on those continents are expected continue that trend through 2040.

China and India account for most of the new growth in coal, but others like Vietnam are looking to drive up demand even higher. The Southeast Asian country plans a fivefold increase in coal reliance through 2035.

TRUMP REMAINS COMMITTED TO LARGEST COAL PLANT IN WEST DESPITE SETBACK: The Trump administration remains committed to finding a way to keep the largest coal plant in the West up and running beyond 2019, despite a setback on Thursday to find a new buyer for the plant.

“The Department remains committed to exploring options that stakeholders may present for an economically-viable option for the Navajo Generating Station,” Theresa Eisenman, chief spokeswoman for the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation, told the Washington Examiner on Friday.

“Interior will continue to support a path forward that meets this objective and recognizes the economic implications to the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe, as well as Tribes and water users in central and southern Arizona,” said Eisenman.

The Bureau of Reclamation owns a 25 percent stake in the plant, which was designated by Congress to be built in the 1970s to power the pumps to supply water to a growing population in Arizona. In 2017, the other owners of the plant agreed to close it based on competition from other energy resources, specifically low-cost natural gas.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke stepped in to get them to agree to keep the plant open through 2019, while the coal company Peabody, which supplies the plant’s fuel, launched an initiative to find a new owner. Keeping the plant open through 2040 is seen as part of Trump’s commitment to the coal industry.

But that plan suffered a setback on Thursday, when the capital venture firm Middle River Power announced it would not be moving forward with the purchase of the plant.

U.S. TO BEGIN ‘DISRUPTING’ NORTH KOREA OIL SMUGGLING: An international coalition of American allies will start “detecting and disrupting” North Korean oil smuggling operations at sea, a top U.S. diplomat announced Saturday.

“The United States has deployed aircraft and surface vessels to detect and disrupt these activities,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a news release.

That comes on the heels of a pledge by three U.S. allies to enhance the surveillance of North Korean oil tankers. Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, announced Friday they would aid “monitoring and surveillance activities against illicit maritime activities,” with a particular focus on ship-to-ship transfers of oil.

That sets the stage for a confrontation with Russia and China, who persist in selling oil to North Korea despite western assessments that they’ve breached an annual cap imposed by the United Nations Security Council.

RUNDOWN

Houston Chronicle Traders begin talking about $100 oil again

NBC News U.N. General Assembly meeting to make Paris climate accord a priority

Bloomberg China adding new coal capacity

Next Big Future Turning coal plants in giant batteries using their CO2

KSTP Minnesota regulators approve wind permits amid local opposition