WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Thursday, Daily on Energy readers! It has officially hit peak bloom in D.C. 🌸🌸🌸 If you are in the area, we hope you get an opportunity to see some cherry blossoms.
Senate Democrats unveiled a new energy plan, reaffirming the party’s efforts to tackle climate change, while also addressing the growing concerns surrounding energy costs. ♻️⚡
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump held a cabinet meeting this morning, where top administration officials addressed surging oil prices and efforts to end the war in Iran. Keep reading to see what they had to say. 🇺🇲🇮🇷
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SENATE DEMOCRATS UNVEIL NEW ENERGY PLAN: We’re about seven months out from the November midterms, and the Democratic Party has finalized its messaging on how to lower energy prices and end the growing affordability crisis.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York unveiled his party’s plan yesterday at the League of Conservation Voters’ Capital Dinner. He reaffirmed the party’s commitment to tackling climate change, insisting that the consumers don’t have to choose between clean energy and low costs, but can have both.
“We can make a marriage between lower costs and clean energy. That will expand our coalition,” Schumer said, claiming the Trump administration crackdown on wind and solar has only increased prices for consumers. “We can bring new voters and allies into the fight for a cleaner environment by showing how clean energy is affordable energy.”
Schumer’s emphasis on climate change is a departure from the course charted by Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, who ditched green messaging late last year with a plan squarely focused on reliability and affordability in order to appeal to Republicans and swing voters.
For Schumer, “clean energy” doesn’t just mean renewables, but also baseload solutions, such as geothermal, nuclear, and even fusion. This is further evidence of the Democratic Party’s sharp shift to embrace nuclear energy after being its top critics for decades.
The specifics: Overall, the Democratic plan to address energy affordability is broken up into five key points.
- Build more clean energy
- Secure permitting certainty for clean energy and transmission projects
- Upgrade the grid with new transmission and storage infrastructure
- Require data centers to pay their fair share of costs and promote healthy communities
- Establish consumer protections to prevent energy bills from surging
This five-point plan could be key for Democrats ramping up their midterm campaigns, as the party aims to retake the House majority in the fall. Many Republicans face an uphill battle to appeal to voters on energy affordability, as recent polling found that voters are more confident Democrats want to protect them from soaring energy costs.
LATEST ON IRAN: President Donald Trump continues to press Iran to make a deal to end the war in the Middle East.
“The Iranian regime is now admitting to itself that they have been decisively defeated,” Trump said at a White House cabinet meeting today.
“They’ll tell you, we’re not negotiating. We will not negotiate. Of course, they’ll negotiate. They’ve been obliterated. They are begging to make a deal. We’ll see if we can make the right deal, and if they make the right deal, then the Strait of Hormuz will open up…” Trump said.
Iran rejected the U.S. proposal to end the war and issued a counterproposal. Trump officials yesterday said they were working on arranging a meeting in Pakistan, but Pakistani officials have yet to confirm whether they will host high-level foreign officials, the New York Times reports.
What’s happening in the strait? The president noted that Iran has allowed for about 10 oil tankers to move through the Strait of Hormuz. Tankers have been at a standstill since the war started, raising global energy prices.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the cabinet meeting said he is “confident” that traffic will increase through the waterway. He also noted that the administration’s maritime insurance program will begin soon, allowing for ships to move through the strait.
Japan shifts to coal: Meanwhile, Japan is set to temporarily lift restrictions on the operations of coal-fired power plants to ensure stable energy amid the war in Iran, Nikkei reports.
Japan is expected to lift restrictions for one year starting in April.
The war in Iran has impacted natural gas exports due to the closure of the strait and attacks on the QatarEnergy liquefied natural gas facilities. Both Europe and Asia rely heavily on natural gas from the region but supplies have since tightened due to the war.
OIL AND GAS PRICE WATCH: During today’s cabinet meeting, Trump insisted that the U.S. doesn’t need the Strait of Hormuz, saying that because the U.S. has so much oil supply, “our country is not affected by this.”
Traders, and drivers at the pump, might disagree.
Domestic and international benchmark oil prices rose again today by around 4-5%, sticking around the $100 per barrel line. As of around 2:30 p.m. EDT, Brent Crude was up 5.7%, and priced at $108.05 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate jumped by 4.66% and was selling at $94.53 per barrel.
As we’ve discussed in Daily on Energy and our other reporting, rising oil prices have a direct effect on everyday commodities like gasoline, particularly as crude is the largest component of the retail price of gas (at around 50%).
Barclays is now estimating that a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz will result in a global oil supply loss of around 13-14 million barrels per day, sending Brent upward again close to $110 per barrel.
This will only put more upward pressure on prices at the pump, which have been surging all month. As of today, AAA was reporting that the national average of gasoline was $3.981 per gallon, up by about $1 compared to before the war began. Diesel is also ticking up, hitting an average of $5.375 per gallon. In California, diesel prices hit record highs yesterday of more than $7, according to GasBuddy.
NEXT WEEK’S ‘GOD SQUAD’ MEETING CALLED OVER NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS: The Endangered Species Committee is scheduled to meet mid-next week for the first time in decades, prompted by a request we now know came from the Pentagon.
The details: Court filings released yesterday reveal that Secretary Pete Hegseth notified Interior Secretary Doug Burgum that the agency “found reasons of national security” to exempt all oil and gas drilling activities in the Gulf of America from Endangered Species Act requirements. The administration has not revealed what its national security concerns are, and gave no indication that it plans to do so ahead of next Wednesday’s meeting.
“The Secretary is under no legal obligation to make records available to Plaintiff or the public before convening any meeting of the Committee, much less one about a national security exemption,” the court filing reads.
The court challenge: The legal filing comes in response to a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, which is seeking an injunction and temporary restraining order to prevent the committee from convening. In the suit, the administration is accused of violating legal procedures required to meet as well as requirements to hold it publicly. Currently, the committee only plans to provide a YouTube livestream of the meeting.
The administration has hit back at these claims, insisting the green group has no legal standing and that they can only challenge any decision made after the committee convenes.
Quick reminder: The Endangered Species Committee is better known as the “God Squad” for its ability to allow an animal or plant to go extinct. It has only voted in favor of reducing endangered species protections twice, allowing exemptions related to whooping cranes and the northern spotted owl.
Environmentalists and conservationists are concerned that the meeting could result in the government significantly reducing protections for at-risk species, including sea turtles and Rice’s whales, to allow oil and gas firms to ramp up production in the Gulf. The Center for Biological Diversity estimates there are only 51 Rice’s whales living in the region.
WYOMING REPUBLICAN LOOKS TO CODIFY TRUMP’S NUCLEAR ORDERS: Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis introduced a bill today to codify four nuclear energy-related executive orders issued last year.
The Strengthening American Nuclear Energy Act of 2026 specifically concerns the four nuclear EOs signed by Trump in May of last year that are meant to jumpstart construction of advanced and traditional nuclear reactors.
The first order focuses on reforming nuclear research and development at the Department of Energy, while the second calls for reform to Energy and Defense department regulations to pave the way for building nuclear reactors on federally owned land that would support defense facilities and artificial intelligence data centers. The third EO signed focused on reforms at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the fourth addresses fuel for nuclear reactors, boosting domestic mining, enrichment, and conversion capabilities for uranium.
If passed, Lummis’ bill would make all four orders federal law, and ensure that the orders could not be undone by future administrations.
Some reaction: The bill has the support of industry executives, including Scott Melbye, president of Uranium Producers of America and executive vice president of Uranium Energy Corp.
“This effort represents a critical step toward achieving the United States’ goal of quadrupling U.S. nuclear energy production by 2050,” Melbye said in a statement.
HISTORIC FLOODING IN HAWAII CAUSED $2BN IN DAMAGES: Hawaii experienced its worst flooding in more than 20 years after two Kona storms hit the islands.
The two back-to-back Kona storms this month caused extreme rainfall and flash flooding across the islands. According to AccuWeather, the damage resulted in around $2 billion in damage and economic loss.
The first Kona storm made landfall on March 9, bringing strong gusts of wind and heavy rainfall, with as much as 44 inches of rain in parts of Maui, AccuWeather said. The second storm hit one week later with a foot or more of rain across the islands.
Kona storms, which typically occur in the colder months, are not uncommon, but experiencing two back-to-back storms is extremely rare.
“This was an extraordinarily rare and destructive series of storms for Hawaii,” said AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter.
“In the hardest-hit areas, homes were damaged and swept away, roads and bridges were washed out, and businesses have been shut down. More than 5,000 people north of Honolulu were evacuated due to the risk of a dam failure,” he added.
DFC TAKES OWNERSHIP IN GRAPHITE COMPANY: The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation said it is converting its existing loan with graphite company Syrah Resources Limited into equity.
The Australian-based company Syrah operates one of the largest graphite mines in northern Mozambique. DFC would convert a portion of its $31 million existing loan into common equity in Syrah, taking about a 20% stake in the company, Bloomberg reports.
The agency will also provide $15 million to the subsidiary operating the Balama graphite mine in Mozambique. Bloomberg said once the deal receives government approval, it will be the second-biggest shareholder in the company.
The federal government has been taking stakes in critical minerals as part of a broader effort to reduce the U.S. reliance on Chinese critical minerals, which are crucial for applications in the energy and defense sectors.
ICYMI – NRC UNVEILS NEW LICENSING PROCESS FOR ADVANCED REACTORS: Federal regulators unveiled a rule yesterday that creates a brand new regulatory process for advanced nuclear reactors to be licensed and built in the U.S.
The details: The issuance of the rule, known as Part 53, marks the first time that the NRC has issued a new reactor licensing framework since 1989 or issued a major update to reactor licensing standards since 1956.
It offers a new approach on how to license advanced reactors, including non-light-water reactors, and provides designers and operators with more flexibility in how the facilities are built and run.
It is meant to accelerate and simplify the licensing process while making it more cost-effective, the NRC said. To do so, the rule established technology-inclusive safety standards, increased flexibility for reactor design, graded security requirements, and more.
You can read the full NRC announcement here.
Notable quote: “This final rule is a major NRC action that provides a clear risk-informed, technology-inclusive licensing framework to enable new nuclear to safely move faster from concept to construction,” NRC Chairman Ho Nieh said in a statement. “It is another example of how the NRC is delivering on its mission by keeping safety at the forefront while aligning to the evolving nuclear energy landscape.”
RUNDOWN
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