Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner energy and environment writers Callie Patteson (@CalliePatteson) and Maydeen Merino (@MaydeenMerino). Email cpatteson@washingtonexaminer dot com or mmerino@washingtonexaminer dot com for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.

LATEST ON IRAN: Vice President JD Vance’s Tuesday trip to Islamabad, Pakistan, has been delayed, effectively putting peace and nuclear deal negotiations between the United States and Iran on hold. 

A U.S. official with direct knowledge of the situation confirmed to the New York Times that Vance’s trip was delayed. Vance was expected to fly to Pakistan early this morning, to resume cease-fire discussions tomorrow, the same day President Donald Trump’s two-week cease-fire is scheduled to expire. 

The trip was reportedly put on hold as Iranian officials failed to respond to Washington’s most recent proposals. 

Until an agreement is reached, Trump said this morning, the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed. 

“We’re not dealing with the nicest group of people, but we’re dealing with them very successfully, and the blockade has been a tremendous success,” Trump told CNBC’s Squawk Box. “They said that two days ago, we will open the Strait. And I said, ‘no, we’re not going to open the Strait until we have a final deal’.”

Price reaction: While the vice president’s trip has not been formally canceled, oil prices shot up this afternoon, signaling that traders are not entirely confident that officials will reach an agreement this week. 

Just before 3:30 p.m. EDT, international benchmark Brent Crude inched closer to the $100 line, rising by 2.08% to sell at around $97.47 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate was also up by 1.52% and was priced at $88.75 per barrel. 

WRIGHT BACKTRACKS ON GASOLINE PREDICTION: Energy Secretary Chris Wright has walked back his statement that gas prices could remain above $3 per gallon through this year.

The reversal comes just one day after Trump called his prediction “totally wrong.” 

During a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on the fiscal 2027 budget this morning, Wright said he doesn’t know “the future of energy prices.”

“Often I will speculate or look at those things,” Wright said. “I would say gasoline prices look like they peaked about a week or so ago.”

He said that prices are still far lower than they were during the Biden administration, which saw prices surge to more than $5 a gallon due to post-pandemic demand growth, global supply constraints caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and other factors.

Read more from Callie here. 

Another notable prediction: Wright touted the administration’s efforts to prop up the fossil fuel industry during his testimony, saying it is a priority for the administration to make it easier for businesses to build things – such as oil and gas infrastructure – in the U.S. 

He criticized permitting roadblocks implemented on the state level in New York, which have prevented two controversial pipeline projects from being built in the state. 

“The six states of New England pay wildly higher heating and electricity prices than they should because one state, the state of New York, decided not to give this water permit to two critical pipelines eight years ago,” Wright said. 

He added that he believed the project developers will be able to start construction and even complete the projects before Trump leaves office. 

One of the projects, the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project, broke ground last week. 

TRUMP INVOKES DEFENSE PRODUCTION ACT: Trump took steps to further accelerate the production of oil, natural gas and coal yesterday, invoking a Cold War-era law which allows the president to increase production of certain items for national security. 

The details: Trump signed five presidential determinations invoking the Defense Production Act yesterday afternoon, focused on fossil fuels as well as the deployment of large-scale energy and grid-related infrastructure.

Administration officials said that the orders will allow the Department of Energy to use funding secured under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to strengthen the national power grid and ramp up production of domestic resources. 

Specifically, these determinations authorize federal purchases or financial support to accelerate the development of the fossil fuel and grid infrastructure, in an effort to get past time-consuming regulatory delays, infrastructure bottlenecks, and supply chain restrictions.

Read more on the orders here. 

HIGH PRICES ARE MAKING IT DIFFICULT FOR EUROPE TO FILL GAS STORAGE: Members of the European Union are off-track to meet targets for filling gas storage to 80% for the coming winter, the Financial Times reports, due to high prices from the Iran war. 

Across the bloc, ​​stores are at just 30%, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe data. Germany is at just 23.5%. The Netherlands is at 7.4%. Analysts are warning that, without a change in prices, it will be difficult to meet the storage targets, which were imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to allay fears of shortages. 

Members aim to refill storage after the winter heating months, when demand is less. But prices haven’t cooperated. European gas prices are up more than 20% on the year, and higher than they were for December. 

INTERIOR REOPENS TIDAL BASIN SEAWALLS: Earlier this morning, the Interior Department held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to reopen the Tidal Basin and Potomac River seawalls, which have been closed to the public for more than a year for rehabilitation. 

The National Park Service began the rehabilitation project in August 2024, replacing aging seawalls that were originally built in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Over the last century, those walls had settled more than five feet, causing daily flooding on pedestrian walkways, as well as damage to the surrounding environment.

As part of the project, officials reinforced more than 6,000 feet of shoreline, installed wider walkways, and planted 546 new trees – 353 of which are cherry trees. 

The project was primarily funded through the Great American Outdoors Act, signed into law in 2020.  

Check out some video of the upgraded seawalls and park here. 

JUDGE BLOCKS INTERIOR POLICIES SLOWING WIND AND SOLAR PERMITS: A federal judge has blocked a number of permitting policies implemented by the Interior Department last year that created regulatory hurdles for renewable projects. 

Chief U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston issued a preliminary injunction earlier today in favor of a group of advocacy groups and trade associations that claimed the policies were unlawfully preventing the development of wind and solar, according to Reuters. 

These policies included requiring nearly each step of the federal permitting process for wind and solar to receive direct approval from high-level officials, including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. 

The plaintiffs, which included renewable energy organizations RENEW NorthEast and Alliance for Clean Energy New York, claimed this policy and others were in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. 

Casper ruled that the groups were likely to succeed in showing that Interior and other agencies imposed unlawful policies that forced developers to abandon their projects.

ICYMI – SOLAR POSES GREAT NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT, BURGUM SAYS: China’s dominance over the solar panel manufacturing industry poses a significant national security threat to the U.S., Interior Secretary Burgum said. 

The details: During a hearing before a House appropriations panel yesterday afternoon, Burgum said that markets are not interested in investing in new solar and wind projects. He claimed this is because of the absence of federal subsidies and supply chain concerns due to China’s manufacturing dominance. 

“A lot of these solar projects were built almost exclusively with Chinese-made solar panels,” Burgum said. “You know, that’s an issue for national security.” 

California Democratic Rep. Josh Harder quickly questioned the secretary on the magnitude of that threat, asking, “So there’s more national security risk in doing solar than doing nuclear, gas plants?”

Burgum appeared to agree with this sentiment, comparing it to national security risks associated with products from Huawei Technologies. In 2019, the U.S. banned most Huawei products over espionage concerns.

A ZOOMED-OUT LOOK AT THE ‘DRILL, BABY, DRILL’ AGENDA: Callie has a piece that was published on the Examiner’s site this morning that provides a high-level view of the status of the Trump administration’s efforts to boost oil and gas production and lower prices, looking at where it has succeeded and where it has fallen short, sometimes because of other Trump policies. 

The whole piece, which includes a lot of worthwhile comments from those in the industry, is worth your time, so please give it a read. 

But here are a few highlights. 

Prices as an obstacle to drilling: For much of the past year, low oil prices – which Trump has helped engineer in part by encouraging more supply overseas – have been an obstacle to increasing production. 

“The term ‘drill, baby, drill’ went away very quickly after the administration came in, and it turned into more ‘wait, baby, wait,’ because the economics of drilling $60 oil are just not very good,” Kirk Edwards, the former chairman of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, told Callie.

Tariffs have been a problem, too: The combination of lower prices and higher operating costs, in part from Trump’s tariffs, have made it difficult for some smaller companies to expand operations. 

“Since Trump got in office, we’ve gotten crushed,” said Dan Doyle, president and owner of fracking firm Reliance Well Services and Wyoming-based operator Arena Resources.

The DOGE angle: The administration also caused some headaches for industry via DOGE cuts. When it paused funding and grants approved under the Biden administration early last year, it disrupted plugging operations by some producers.

Jack Shepherd, vice president of Mountain States Oilfield Services told Callie that, “When DOGE came in, everything stopped…. It’s been completely idle for just over a year.”

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