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GREATER OIL DEMAND DUE TO TRUMP’S FUEL EFFICIENCY ROLLBACK COULD MAKE AMERICANS FEEL HIGHER PRICES: The Trump administration’s plan to relax fuel efficiency and vehicle pollution standards would result in Americans consuming significantly more oil. But the administration says that shouldn’t matter when the U.S. is producing so much oil of its own.

“The U.S. is currently producing enough oil to satisfy nearly all of its energy needs and is projected to continue to do so, or become a net energy exporter,” the administration wrote in its proposal released last week. “This has added new stable supply to the global oil market and reduced the urgency of the U.S. to conserve energy.”

Not out of the woods: Experts, however, say that Americans, as they increase oil use, become more exposed to potential global price shocks — a fact of oil markets that remains true today even as the U.S. rivals Saudi Arabia and Russia among the world’s largest producers.

The U.S. remains a net importer of oil, as it has been since 1953, although that may change within a few years.

“Regardless of our import level, in a global oil market, consumers in the U.S. will still see prices rise at the pump when there’s a supply problem in the Middle East or elsewhere,” Jason Bordoff, the director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a former White House energy adviser to President Barack Obama, told Josh. “So energy conservation remains important to help protect consumers against inevitable future oil price spikes, not to mention reduce pollution and carbon emissions.”

The Environmental Protection Agency, with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, proposed last week freezing fuel-efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions targets at 2020 levels through 2026, instead of raising them each year as the Obama administration had planned.

Oil bonanza: By freezing the standards in 2020, the Trump administration acknowledges, it will cause an additional 500,000 barrels of U.S. oil to be consumed each day. That’s roughly 2.5 percent of total U.S. daily oil consumption in 2018.

An analysis by the independent Rhodium Group similarly projects that U.S oil consumption will rise between 252,000 and 881,000 barrels per day by 2035 under the Trump administration’s plan, or between 1.2 percent and 4.3 percent of the 20.4 million barrels of oil consumed in the U.S. each day this year.

Pocketbook impact: This extra oil used by Americans would cost consumers an additional $193 billion to $236 billion cumulatively between now and 2035, depending on prices.

“Weakened fuel efficiency standards increase the amount of oil people need to drive to work and school, making the impact of an oil price spike on their pocketbooks greater,” Trevor Houser, a Rhodium Group researcher who produced the report, told Josh.

Welcome to Daily on Energy, compiled by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers John Siciliano (@JohnDSiciliano) and Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe). Email [email protected] 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.

RICK PERRY PROMOTES WIND WEEK WHILE INTERIOR TOUTS COAL AND FRACKING: Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Tuesday was busy tweeting about the top five states for wind energy, while a top Interior Department official was addressing climate skeptics on efforts to advance mining and drilling.

Joe Balash, Interior’s mining and lands chief, gave the closing keynote Tuesday night at the Heartland Institute’s America First Energy Conference in Louisiana.

Among the highlights, Balash called the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, a “four-letter word” and declared the “war on coal” over.

He touted the end of the Obama-era moratorium on coal leasing, which was rolled back as part of the Trump energy dominance agenda.

‘Market should figure it out’: “When it comes to coal, we don’t think the Department of the Interior, or anyone in the federal government, should be picking winners and losers in the energy space,” he said. “We believe the market should figure that out.”

Perry promotes wind energy: Just a few hours earlier, Perry tweeted a list of the five states leading the country on wind energy. He was promoting a national industry event called #AmericanWindWeek, one of the largest renewable energy industry events this summer. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was even given an award Tuesday for his support of the wind sector during one of the dozens of events associated with week-long promotion of wind.

Texas and Iowa: Not surprisingly, Perry’s home state of Texas and Iowa lead the country on wind. Oil and natural gas hub Oklahoma was number three, beating California. Kansas is ranked fifth, according to Perry’s tweet.
Before that, the Energy Department tweeted out a schematic on “how wind turbines work,” which is also connected to #AmericanWindWeek.

Jobs: On Monday, Perry tweeted that wind energy was part of the administration’s New Energy Realism, supporting over 100,000 jobs. “Wind energy is an important part of America’s all-of-the-above energy future,” he said.

FINAL ACTION ON REPEALING OBAMA-ERA METHANE RULE COMING SOON: The Trump administration will soon finalize its repeal of the Obama administration’s “venting and flaring” rule to manage emissions from fracking, Balash said.

‘Final stages’: He told the Heartland Institute that the agency is in the “final stages” of working with the White House Office of Management and Budget to prepare the final rule on updating and revising the venting and flaring regulations in the coming weeks.

‘Strong objection’: “The previous administration had pushed that one through after the strong objection of many state governments,” Balash said.

Obama’s ‘cloak’ and ‘cover’ rule: The rule “upset decades of precedent on how we count waste” from the oil and natural gas sector, he said. It was a “cloak, just a cover, to use federal land management and royalty policy to regulate emissions.”

Revising the rule to make it less costly for industry in managing methane from drilling is one of the ways the Interior Department is promoting drilling on federal lands, he said.

He said the U.S. is missing out on billions of dollars in revenue by restricting energy development on public lands.

“If production on federal lands had grown at the same rate as overall U.S. production from 2009 to 2015, total royalties would have been 31 percent higher,” he said. “We would have had an additional 20 billion dollars in the Treasury. And that would have helped across the board.”

SEVENTY NEW COAL MINES, SEVEN NEW COAL LEASES: “From Jan 2017 to March 2018, we’ve issued seven new coal leases by application, we’ve approved 70 new coal mine plans and these approvals positively impact 1,900 employees with those associated mines,” Balash told the Heartland Institute.

US, JAPAN INCREASE COLLABORATION ON NUCLEAR ENERGY: The U.S. and Japan will increase collaboration on nuclear energy development, the Energy Department announced Wednesday.

Nuclear Wednesday: Officials of the Energy Department participated in the fifth meeting of the U.S.-Japan Bilateral Commission on Civil Nuclear Cooperation in Tokyo on Wednesday. They reaffirmed nuclear energy as an important “clean energy” resource, as well as the two countries’ work on nuclear weapons nonproliferation.

‘Clean Energy’: “Nuclear power is a critical source for clean energy generation, providing energy security and reliability that can improve the standard of living around the world,” said Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, who led the talks on the U.S. side. “I look forward to our future efforts with Japan on civil nuclear cooperation.”

Brouillette and Japan’s Senior Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Takeo Mori led the talks as co-chairs of the commission.

Joint statement of support: The U.S. and Japan issued a joint statement after the meeting reaffirming their intention to cooperate on the advancement of shared nuclear nonproliferation objectives, continuing joint efforts to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Next year in the U.S.: Follow up on these objectives will be reported on at the next bilateral commission meeting to be held next year in the U.S.

CHINA RETALIATES AGAINST TRUMP WITH TARIFFS ON $16 BILLION OF GOODS: China said Wednesday it would impose retaliatory 25 percent tariffs on $16 billion worth of U.S. imports, after the Trump administration issued similar tariffs against China on Tuesday.

China’s new punitive tariffs will target U.S. automobiles, coal, and medical instruments. But for now, China will not put tariffs on U.S. crude oil, Argus Media reported. China is the largest U.S. market for crude exports.

Tit-for-tat: The new U.S. tariffs on $16 billion worth of Chinese goods are set to take effect on Aug. 23, and are meant to punish China for what the Trump administration says is unfair trade practices, including China’s failure to respect U.S. intellectual property rights and its policy of forced technology transfer. Last month, the administration hit China with tariffs on $34 billion worth of imports for that reason.

More trade threats: The White House is also weighing tariffs on another $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, and has said those could be 25 percent tariffs instead of the 10 percent tariff initially under consideration. The Trump administration said the increased tariffs are intended to force Beijing to negotiate a new bilateral trade deal.

China, in response, said it would retaliate with 5 percent to 25 percent tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. products, including liquified natural gas, a move that would imperil Trump’s energy export agenda.

ELON MUSK CONSIDERS TAKING TESLA PRIVATE: SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Tuesday afternoon that he is considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share.

Immediately after his tweet, stock prices surged for Tesla, reaching almost $370 per share before trading for the company was halted shortly after 2 p.m.

Let me clarify: Musk released a statement about an hour and a half after the trading halt that said he had not yet made a final decision on the matter, but feels that taking the electric car company private would help Tesla operate better. The company has faced production bottlenecks for its electric vehicles.

“As a public company, we are subject to wild swings in our stock price that can be a major distraction for everyone working at Tesla, all of whom are shareholders,” Musk said.

Trading resumed before the close of market, and Tesla ended the day at almost $380 per share.

Public target: Musk says his intention in considering privatizing the company does not have to do with him wanting to gain more control of Tesla.

Instead, he said wants to take Tesla private because he believe the company works best when there are not “large numbers of people who have the incentive to attack the company.” Musk claims these attacks are present because Tesla is the most shorted stock in the history of the stock market.

“I fundamentally believe that we are at our best when everyone is focused on executing, when we can remain focused on our long-term mission, and when there are not perverse incentives for people to try to harm what we’re all trying to achieve,” Musk continued in his announcement on Tesla’s blog.

ZINKE BLAMES ‘RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS’ FOR THWARTING WILDFIRE PROGRESS: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke blamed “radical environmentalists” on Wednesday for blocking progress in preventing wildfires like the ones raging through California.

“Radical environmentalists would have you believe forest management means clear cutting forests and national parks,” Zinke said in a USA Today op-ed. “But their rhetoric could not be further from the truth. They make outdated and unscientific arguments, void of facts, because they cannot defend the merits of their policy preferences year after year as our forests and homes burn to the ground.”

Fuel fixer: A day earlier, Zinke, in a tweet, called for improvements to forest management policies, saying that the “overload of dead and diseased timber in the forests makes the fires worse and more deadly.”

He wants to see more frequent use of prescribed burns, in which officials intentionally set fires to take away ignitable material like brush off the forest floor and give trees more space to breathe. Another preventative method, called forest thinning, involves crews removing small trees to reduce the amount of fuel in dry forests.

‘Frivolous litigation: But he says litigation threats impose barriers.

“[When] we try to thin forests of dead and dying timber, or we try to sustainably harvest timber from dense and fire-prone areas, we are attacked with frivolous litigation from radical environmentalists who would rather see forests and communities burn than see a logger in the woods,” Zinke wrote in his op-ed.

Climate talks: Zinke acknowledged that hotter and drier weather is leading to fires “burning hotter and more intense.” But he did not use the phrase climate change, which Gov. Jerry Brown and others have blamed for worsening wildfires.

CALIFORNIA’S LARGEST WILDFIRE COULD TAKE A MONTH TO PUT OUT: California’s largest wildfire ever has burned more than 290,000 acres as of Tuesday, as it continued to grow in size.

Two fires, known collectively as the Mendocino Complex, are scorching north of Napa County’s wine-growing region. It could take a month to contain the fire, California officials said.

Fire tracker: There were 17 wildfires burning through California as of Tuesday, burning through about 630,000 acres. The Carr Fire, the most deadly of them, is blamed for seven deaths, and has destroyed more than 1,000 homes. The Ferguson Fire has shut down major sections of Yosemite National Park indefinitely.

California has deployed the most firefighters in the state’s history — more than 13,000 — and firefighters from more than a dozen states are helping.

Air quality issues: The fires are also prompting concerns about air quality. Residents of Sacramento County, where the Mendocino fire is happening, have been warned to stay indoors through Friday, the Washington Post reported. Officials have issued air quality alerts in several states as wildfires are emitting smoke that contains a toxic mixture of gases and fine particles resulting from burning wood and plants.

IRAN SAYS US CAN’T STOP ITS OIL EXPORTS: Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Wednesday the U.S. cannot stop its oil exports despite the threat of sanctions.

“If the Americans want to keep this simplistic and impossible idea in their minds they should also know its consequences,” Zarif told an Iranian newspaper, Reuters reported. “They can’t think that Iran won’t export oil and others will export.”

Cut off: The Trump administration, after leaving the Iran nuclear deal, says countries should stop importing oil from Tehran by November 5 or risk being blocked from the American financial system. Although countries like China are likely to continue buying oil from Iran, the White House said it is continuing efforts to get countries on board to not import Iran’s oil.

EIA SAYS US OIL PRODUCTION IS EXPECTED TO SLOW: The pace of U.S. oil production growth is expected to slow, the Energy Information Administration said Tuesday. Its short term energy outlook projects domestic oil output to average 11.7 million barrels a day next year, down from its previous estimate of 11.8 million per day.

Short term pain: EIA also sees U.S. oil production falling short of previous expectations this year, saying output will average 10.68 million barrels a day instead of 10.79 million a day. The U.S. is still on track to become the world’s largest oil producer, thanks to the shale boom.

Pipeline problem: But pipeline constraints in the Permian Basin, America’s most prolific oil production region, are hampering growth. That could change late next year, when three major pipeline projects are slated to open, potentially adding more than 2 million barrels a day of capacity.

TRUMP PREPARING ROLLBACK OF OBAMA-ERA LIGHTBULB RULES: The Energy Department is preparing to repeal Obama administration rules that broadened the kinds of lightbulbs that must meet stringent energy efficiency standards beginning in 2020.

An internal document leaked on the Energy Department website said the agency is moving to scrap the Obama administration’s January 2017 rule expanding efficiency standards to speciality lightbulbs.

Light it up: These bulbs are used in in track and recessed lighting, bathroom vanities, and chandeliers, according to the Energy Department document, which the agency later removed from its website.

Bright idea: The Obama administration said the standards would save consumers money, and limit greenhouse gas emissions. But the trade group for the world’s leading light bulb manufacturers, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, lobbied the Trump administration for the change, saying the Obama rules were rushed, and violate the law.

RICHMOND FED SAYS CLIMATE CHANGE COULD DAMPEN ECONOMIC GROWTH: The Richmond fed released a report Tuesday saying that if climate change causes higher summer temperatures in the U.S., it could hamper growth in a variety of business sectors.

The Richmond Fed, one of America’s 12 regional federal reserve banks, said hotter weather could reduce overall U.S. economic growth by as much as one-third over the next century, with Southern states accounting for a disproportionate share of that potential reduction.

“This evidence challenges long-standing assumptions that economic damage from climate change would be confined largely to the agricultural sector or to developing nations,” the report said.

EPA’S ASBESTOS RULE DRAWS ENVIRONMENTAL IRE: The Environmental Protection Agency’s deadline for submitting public comments on its rule to continue the use of asbestos closes on Friday, which is expected to draw the anger and outrage of a significant number of detractors.

‘Rogue nation’: “The U.S. is already a rogue nation in its failure to ban asbestos,” said Ken Cook, president of the activist Environmental Working Group. “That’s bad enough, but now the Trump administration wants to let companies use more of a proven killer that takes an estimated 40,000 American lives each year.”

Asbestos, commonly used for decades for its fire resistance properties in buildings, is a proven cause of lung cancer and respiratory ailments.

Russian support: Environmental groups have pointed out that Russia’s largest asbestos producer has begun labeling shipments of its product with the likeness of Trump stamped on its shipment boxes.  

“No wonder Russia’s largest asbestos producer is slapping Trump’s picture on its product,” Cook said. “We’ve known for almost 50 years that no level of exposure to asbestos is safe. It’s time for the U.S. to join more than 55 nations and ban all uses of asbestos.”

RUNDOWN

E&E News To kill climate rule, EPA wants to redefine danger of soot

Wall Street Journal California questions its growth as largest wildfire burns

Axios Carbon capture, use get boost in multi-million dollar initiative

Reuters Inside Tesla’s troubled New York solar factory

Quartz The next innovation in batteries might be here