WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Thursday, Daily on Energy readers! The Environmental Protection Agency has officially rescinded the Endangerment Finding, marking one of the most aggressive actions by the administration to undo climate policy. However, the administration has been quickly met with legal challenges. 🏛️
In other news, Energy Secretary Chris Wright is in Venezuela, where he toured oil and gas activities as the administration looks for a pathway for U.S. oil firms to enter the country. We’ve got details on the energy secretary’s trip below. 🛢️⬇️
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.
EPA REPEALS ENDANGERMENT FINDING: President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the agency has finalized a rule to repeal the 2009 Endangerment Finding.
The move marks one of the most significant actions by the administration to reverse climate policy. The finding, which was supported by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, served as a legal basis for the federal government to regulate emissions on vehicles.
Zeldin called it the “single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history.”
As a result of the rescinded finding, the EPA has also terminated tailpipe emissions standards for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles and engines, including ending fuel-saving features like the “stop-start” function in cars.
Minutes after the Trump administration rescinded the finding, the Environmental Defense Fund announced it will challenge the EPA in court. EDF said the high court has already affirmed that the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Meanwhile, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said the EPA has “abandoned” protecting Americans from pollution and climate change to instead support the fossil fuel industry.
“This shameful abdication—an economic, moral, and political failure—will harm Americans’ health, homes, and economic well-being,” the senators said in a statement. “It ignores scientific fact and common-sense observations to serve big political donors.”
Read more by Maydeen here.
LATEST ON CHRIS WRIGHT IN VENEZUELA: Energy Secretary Chris Wright continued to travel through Venezuela today, touring ongoing oil and gas drilling and exploration activities in the Orinoco oil belt.
Photos and videos shared on social media today showed Wright and Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez on site at PetroIndependencia, a joint oil venture backed by Chevron and state-run oil company PDVSA.
The joint venture has been operational since 2010 and currently produces around 40,000 barrels per day. However, CNN reported this morning that Chevron is now claiming that it has the potential to produce 300,000 barrels per day.
Such an increase in crude oil production would help the Trump administration reach its goal of increasing Venezuela’s total oil production by 50% within the next 12 to 18 months. Venezuela currently extracts fewer than a million barrels of oil per day.
The message: Wright is hopeful that his visit to Venezuela will offer a signal to the private sector that the administration is clearing the pathway for U.S. oil firms to safely and successfully go back into the country and expand operations.
The secretary told reporters following his meeting with Rodríguez yesterday that the administration wants to see a “flood of investment,” per the Financial Times.
The administration has taken several steps to make it easier for producers to pursue exploration and drilling activities, issuing general licenses for operations and lifting sanctions.
“We’re massively changing the viability of commercial business on the ground in Venezuela, and American interest in it is just overwhelming,” Wright said.
What’s next: Wright is expected to remain in the country until tomorrow, though it won’t be the end of direct engagement between the Trump administration and high-level Venezuelan officials.
Rodríguez told NBC News that she has been invited to the U.S. to continue diplomatic discussions.
“We’re contemplating coming there once we establish this cooperation, and we can move forward with everything,” she said.
Venezuela is also taking steps to encourage increased drilling by foreign oil majors, with sources telling Bloomberg that the country plans to grant more oil blocks to Chevron and Spanish energy firm Repsol in the coming days.
TRUMP NOMINATES HOSPITALITY EXEC TO LEAD PARKS: Trump has nominated food and hospitality executive Scott Socha to lead the National Park Service, which has gone without a formal figurehead for more than a year.
The details: In a series of nominations released yesterday, Trump tapped Socha to the role. This nomination is subject to the approval of the Senate.
Socha currently serves as the president of Parks and Resorts for Delaware North and Delaware North Australia, a food, venue, and hotel management company that has a history of providing services to national parks, including Yellowstone and Yosemite. He first joined the company in 1999.
The nomination was praised by the National Parks Conservation Association, which called it a “critical moment” for the agency.
“The Park Service Director must reverse course on the damage that’s been done to parks and park staff over the last year,” the group said. “If confirmed, he must put the Park Service’s mission first, stand up for park staff, fill critical vacancies and halt attacks on our nation’s history.”
INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY LOWERS GLOBAL OIL DEMAND FORECAST: Global oil demand is expected to rise more slowly this year than previously thought, the International Energy Agency said in its monthly oil report today.
The IEA forecast that, in 2026, worldwide demand will grow by 850,000 barrels per day. While this is up from the demand growth of 770,000 barrels per day seen last year, it is down from what the agency previously estimated – around 930,000 barrels per day.
As in 2025, this demand increase is expected to be driven by countries not part of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), such as China and India.
As the demand growth shrinks, the IEA reiterated its warnings of a supply glut – despite the industry seeing major drawdown due to severe winter storm weather seen across North America last month. In January, world oil supply dropped by 1.2 million barrels per day to 106.6 million barrels per day.
Price reaction: Oil prices fell into the low and mid $60s today following the release of the oil market report, with international and domestic benchmarks falling by nearly 3%.
As of 3 p.m. EST, West Texas Intermediate was down by 2.44% and selling at $63.05 per barrel. Brent crude had also fallen 2.39% and priced at $67.74 per barrel.
FRANCE GOES ALL-IN FOR NUCLEAR: France has moved to slash its targets for wind and solar power, opting instead to support and expand its existing nuclear fleet.
The details: The country put out a new energy law earlier today reversing a mandate for the state-run utility EDF to shut down 14 nuclear reactors, according to France24. EDF currently operates a fleet of around 57 reactors.
The law, set to be formalized tomorrow, puts forth a new 10-year framework for the French utility to expand its operations by 5%, to produce 420 terawatt-hours of energy in 2035.
Simultaneously, the law softened the country’s renewable energy targets, lowering its goal of having 133-163 gigawatts of installed capacity of wind and solar by 2035 to just 105-135 gigawatts. It also lowered France’s 2035 target to have an installed capacity of offshore wind from 18 gigawatts to 15 gigawatts.
“We need to stop our internal family squabbling,” French Finance Minister Roland Lescure told members of the press today. “We need both nuclear and renewables.”
ICYMI – AI COMPANY VOWS TO COVER COSTS OF ELECTRICITY PRICE HIKES: Artificial intelligence giant Anthropic is taking the issue of electricity price hikes into its own hands, vowing to prevent increased costs associated with expanded data center operations from being passed on to consumers.
The details: Anthropic, which primarily develops the large language model family Claude, admitted yesterday that data centers can raise electricity prices for consumers due to new or upgraded transmission infrastructure or tightening demand.
To prevent this strain on homeowners’ bills, the company said it will be paying for 100% of all grid upgrades needed to interconnect its data centers to the grid. The company will work with utilities to cover any price increases associated with slower deployment of new electricity generation.
Additionally, the AI giant plans to cut its data center power usage during periods of peak demand and invest in local communities through job creation and other initiatives.
Key quote: “The country needs to build new data centers quickly to maintain its competitiveness on AI and national security—but AI companies shouldn’t leave American ratepayers to pick up the tab,” Anthropic said.
Some background: The announcement comes just days after Politico reported the White House was considering offering voluntary agreements with major tech companies and data center developers to mitigate the effects of expanded AI operations. The agreements would bind the tech firms to numerous energy, water, and community commitments such as paying for 100% of the cost of new power generation.
RUNDOWN
Electrek Why Boston wants to ban some residents from using e-bikes
Axios Emissions will keep falling despite Trump’s climate rollback
Inside Climate News ‘The Sky Isn’t Falling’: Providing Perspective on the Data Center Boom
