WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Wednesday readers! On the third day of permitting, Congress gave to me – one leading House Democrat refusing to concede.
Maydeen caught up with House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman, who is digging in his heels against committee chairman Bruce Westerman’s bill to reform the National Environmental Policy Act. The bill is expected to be voted on in the House next week. Keep reading to learn why Huffman still plans to vote against the legislation.
Today’s edition of Daily on Energy also takes a closer look at the second Trump administration’s first lease sale held in the Gulf. While the president has vowed to substantially increase drilling activities as opposed to the Biden administration, this auction surprisingly drew fewer bids than the last one held by the preceding administration. Read on to learn more.
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.
TRUMP HOLDS FIRST LEASE SALE IN THE GULF DURING SECOND ADMINISTRATION: The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management kicked off its first oil and gas auction under the Trump administration, drawing fewer bids than the last one held during the Biden administration.
Auction results: BOEM this morning held an auction, titled the “Big Beautiful Gulf 1,” for offshore oil and gas leases of about 80 million acres in federal waters offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.
BOEM said it received 219 bids from 30 companies, for 181 blocks across 80 million acres. The bids resulted in a total of $371 million.
However, the bids were fewer than those received at the last Gulf sale during the Biden administration. In 2023, that sale saw 352 bids from 26 companies, covering 1.73 million acres and raising $382 million, marking the largest oil auction in the Gulf since 2015.
The Trump administration received fewer bids even with a lower royalty rate compared to the previous administration. BOEM offered a royalty rate of 12.5%, lower than the Biden administration’s rate of 16.66%.
Key quotes: Laura Robbins, BOEM’s acting regional director in the Gulf of America told reporters that they do not have second thoughts on lowering the rates despite the drop in bids.
“We were setting forth a schedule of certainty in sales and by doing that, the industry knows that they can expect a sale every March and August for the next 15 years, up until March of 2040, so when you’re setting that level of certainty,” Robbins continued, “they know that they can come in March. They know that they can come in August. They are not pressed to have to come in all at once.”
As a reminder: Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act mandates these auctions as a way to advance the administration’s broader approach to boost the fossil fuel industry. BOEM is expected to have at least 30 lease sales in both the Gulf and southern Alaska waters between December 2025 and March 2040.
Read more by Maydeen here.
PERMITTING REFORM UPDATES: With the House expected to take on Arkansas Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman’s permitting reform bill next week, key Democrats are still rallying against the bill.
“I’m ready to vote against it,” California Democrat Rep. Jared Huffman told Maydeen this morning, referring to Westerman’s bill, the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act, or SPEED Act.
Many Democrats like Huffman have been reluctant to support permitting reform because of the lack of safeguards for renewable energy as Trump has made moves to block projects.
Some conservatives, meanwhile, have opposed the safeguards in the bill as overly prescriptive, in terms of limiting the executive branch from revoking permits. Westerman told former Daily on Energy author Josh Siegel yesterday that he was not interested in weakening the bill’s provisions, despite receiving pushback from the House Freedom Caucus.
“[Texas Republican] Rep. Chip Roy and others think that a really bad and extreme bill is not bad and extreme enough,” Huffman said. “So it’s kind of landing where I thought it would at this point.”
“Any serious work in this space is going to have to happen in the Senate, where there’s some adult supervision,” he said.
“The bill is a dramatic overreach,” Huffman said. “[It] does nothing to end this crazy war on clean energy that’s driving up electricity prices for struggling families.”
Huffman continued to say that the permitting bill is a “dramatic missed opportunity” to address the affordability crisis many Americans are facing, he said “we tried to put some good sideboards in place. There are a lot of Democrats that want to work on permitting reform.”
In the meantime: While the SPEED Act awaits its turn on the House floor, members did advance two smaller pieces of bipartisan permitting related legislation late yesterday.
The House advanced the ePermit Act and the Studying NEPA’s Impact on Projects Act through two voice votes. Unlike the SPEED Act, these bills do not directly call for existing law to be changed.
Instead, the ePermit Act would digitize the entire federal permitting process. The Studying NEPA’s Impact on Projects Act would require the Council on Environmental Quality to publish an annual report on environmental reviews and causes of action based on alleged non-compliance with the law.
NUCLEAR REGULATORY NOMINEE HEADS TO SENATE VOTE: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is inching closer to having a complete leadership team as the Senate Environment and Public Works committee advanced Douglas Weaver’s nomination to the commission this morning.
In a 15-4 vote, the commission approved Weaver’s nomination, with ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island voting in favor. Weaver is unlikely to face any hurdles during the formal confirmation vote in the coming days.
Quick reminder: During his confirmation hearing last week, Weaver emphasized his desire to prioritize safety in every decision made while on the commission, even if it cost him his post.
“The NRC’s safety record is exemplary and in today’s rapidly evolving energy landscape the NRC must match safety excellence with regulatory agility,” Weaver said. “While the NRC must act more expeditiously, speed cannot come at the cost of compromising safety.”
VENEZUELA WATCH – SANCTIONED OIL TANKER SEIZED: The United States has seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, adding to the tensions between President Donald Trump and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Moments ago, Trump confirmed that U.S. forces had seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, describing the vessel as “the largest one ever seized.”
Earlier today, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that U.S. forces conducted a “judicial enforcement action on a stateless vessel” that was docked in a Venezuelan port. Details on what vessel was seized or where the incident took place have yet to be released.
In case you forgot, Maduro told fellow members of OPEC that Trump intended to seize Venezuelan oil assets just last week.
Some analysts have suggested that the move will make it more difficult for Venezuela to export crude oil.
“The US seizing a Venezuelan tanker is a clear escalation from financial sanctions to physical interdiction — it raises the stakes for Caracas and anyone facilitating its exports,” Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, told the outlet.
Market impact: Last month, Venezuela exported more than 900,000 barrels per day of crude, according to estimates from Reuters. Any major disruption in its oil output could send a ripple effect through the global markets. Prices began to climb this afternoon following the news of the seizure, with international and domestic benchmarks jumping by a bit over 50 cents.
Just after 3 p.m. EST, Brent Crude was up by 0.87% and priced at $62.48 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate rose by 0.89% and was selling at $58.77 per barrel.
ZELDIN MEETS WITH THE PRESS: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin hosted a holiday party with key members of his leadership team and members of the press on Tuesday evening, which featured an impromptu press conference to close out the night.
The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program: During the roughly 45-minute-long on-the-record conversation with media, Zeldin was pressed on pushback from the fossil fuel industry on the agency’s decision to end its decadelong emissions reporting program.
Late last month, Callie reported that major oil and gas trade groups and producers, including the American Petroleum Institute, Shell, and Exxon, asked the EPA to backtrack its proposal to end the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, claiming it increases state-level reporting burdens, threaten global market access, and threaten their ability to claim tax credits for carbon capture systems and clean fuel production.
Zeldin acknowledged the tax credit concern yesterday, saying “one of the concerns expressed is a dynamic that involves Treasury. And they’re working through it and confident that that’s going to be resolved.”
The administrator went on to advocate for the ability for organizations and individuals to provide public comments during the rulemaking process, noting that he wants the feedback to get rules “right across the board.”
Funding for climate and energy programs: The Trump administration has canceled billions of dollars in funding for a range of climate and clean energy programs.
In particular, the EPA has gone after previously obligated grants for programs within the Biden administration’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.
One of the most recent programs the EPA has sought to cancel funding from is the fund’s Solar for All program. Zeldin noted that the EPA did not cancel it until Congress in the OBBBA asked to terminate unobligated funds from the program.
The EPA has also gone after the fund’s other clean energy programs, claiming the funds were improperly distributed to grantees. The EPA is currently undergoing legal battles against several grantees over the funding.
Zeldin emphasized that when it comes to maintaining the EPA’s statutory obligations, they want to ensure that funding for environmental programs go directly to addressing the issue, instead of some “third party activist.”
“My position is not that we should be taking money from a left-wing NGO and give it to a right-wing NGO. I’ve never at any point advocated for that, and our agency has not been doing that at all this year,” he added.
“We want to make sure that money that is appropriate in the name of environmental remediation is gone as directly and as efficiently as it’s appropriated for environmental remediation,” he said.
CHRIS WRIGHT REITERATES PLAN TO USE LPO FOR NUCLEAR REACTORS: Energy Secretary Chris Wright is sticking by his plan to use the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office to directly support the construction of 10 new large nuclear reactors under the Trump administration.
The details: In an interview with the Washington Free Beacon this week, Wright explained that the LPO will be used to encourage investment from the private sector. Wright told the outlet he will be using the LPO for “credit-worthy hyperscalers” that would put equity capital on the table. Those deals will likely include low-interest loans and will focus on the “maybe the first 10 reactors” that get built, the secretary said.
Consistent messaging: For months, Wright has indicated that the LPO – which is being rebranded at the agency’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing – would be used in this way to incentivize the private sector to move quickly.
During an exclusive interview with Callie in August, the secretary explained that commercial lending markets are known for being risk-averse, particularly in an industry that had been on the decline for decades before seeing a revival brought on by demands from artificial intelligence.
“There’s not going to be a lot of debt capital available in the private marketplace, so we’re going to fill that hole for the first 5-10 plus reactors that are built,” Wright told Callie.
ICYMI – REPUBLICAN CRITICISM OF TRUMP’S WIND CRACKDOWN GROWS: The Trump administration is facing more backlash from members of their own party over its months-long campaign to block the wind industry from growing.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt criticized the administration yesterday during an interview with Semafor, saying the federal government’s efforts to block new projects and those already under construction are “very disappointing.”
“That just looks like politics when you’re canceling those,” Stitt said, telling Semafor that the government and party has to be “agnostic” about energy sources.
“You cannot weaponize these things and just for political purposes put your thumb on the scale,” the Republican governor added.
RUNDOWN
Vox Zillow’s short-sighted move to overlook climate risk
Reuters EU sustainability cutbacks make low-carbon leaders harder to spot
Grist The Navajo Nation said no to a hydropower project. Trump officials want to ensure tribes can’t do that again.
