OIL ON TAP WHEN TRUMP MEETS WITH NIGERIAN PRESIDENT? President Trump will meet with the leader of Nigeria for a day of talks at the White House, which could turn to crude oil and natural gas quickly.

• U.S. oil hurting Nigerian energy imports: The U.S. shale oil revolution that Trump is pushing has decimated the amount of oil imports of expensive, light-sweet crude oil from Nigeria.

Nigeria’s development boom hinges on its oil wealth. Just recently, the U.S. began importing more oil from the West African country, but it’s nowhere near where it was a decade ago.

Oil imports from Nigeria have plunged from about 40,000 barrels per month in 2007 to just more than 10,000 barrels this winter.

But over the last two years, the amount has sunk to well below 2,000 barrels per month, according to the Energy Information Administration. Still, Nigeria is in the top 10 list of countries the U.S. imports oil from, according to the EIA.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is the first leader from sub-Saharan Africa to sit down with Trump at the White House.

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.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION CONSIDERS FREEZING AUTO EFFICIENCY RULES: The Trump administration is considering a proposal to weaken Obama-era fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas rules, freezing targets at 2020 levels through 2025, according to multiple reports.

The proposal is the “preferred option” of one of several alternatives being considered by the Environmental Protection Agency and Transportation Department’s National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, which are jointly drafting the rules.

All of the options would weaken the standards.

• ‘Too high’: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced this month that he is scrapping former President Barack Obama’s strict new fuel-efficiency and greenhouse gas rules for cars and light trucks.

Pruitt said the Obama administration’s rules that set a 54-mile per gallon standard by 2025, up from the current average of 38.3 mpg, were “not appropriate” and should be revised.

• Freeze frame: Under the Trump administration’s preferred outcome in its draft plan, fuel economy standards would be frozen after 2020, keeping the fuel economy target near 40 miles a gallon through 2025.

• Fight coming: The EPA is also prepared to challenge California over a waiver it has that allows it to set its own, tougher fuel-efficiency standards, the New York Times and Washington Post reported.

Stanley Young, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, told Josh he had not seen the Trump administration’s proposal, but would oppose it.

• A bridge too far? Automakers, including Ford and Honda, have called for more flexibility than the Obama administration’s standards but are still seeking an increase in efficiency standards from current and previous levels.

A spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers would not weigh in on the reported proposal. “We just can’t judge something we haven’t even seen,” Wade Newton, director of communications for the auto alliance, told Josh. “I haven’t seen this proposal.”

NO CARBON TAX, SCALISE SAYS: House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., drew a line in the sand on a carbon tax last week just as some are pushing to add climate change policies to the tax code.

Scalise introduced a nonbinding resolution in the House on Thursday, with pro-coal Republican Rep. David McKinley of West Virginia, that opposes congressional support for a tax on carbon dioxide pollution.

“Working with President Trump, this Congress is leading America toward energy dominance and strong economic growth, yet some liberal Washington special interests continue to pursue a radical agenda that includes imposing a job-killing carbon tax, which would raise costs on everything we buy from electricity and gasoline to food and everyday household products,” Scalise said.

TRUMP CLIMATE PLAN WOULD MEAN ‘LIVES LOST,’ DEMOCRATS SAY: Senate Democrats slammed the Trump administration’s proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan on Friday, saying it would harm public health while exacerbating the effects of global warming.

• Beating the deadline: A group of Democrats led by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, sent a letter to Pruitt opposing both the EPA’s proposed repeal of the President Barack Obama-era climate plan and its ideas for replacing it. The letter was sent ahead of the midnight deadline to submit comments on the EPA’s repeal of the climate plan.

• The insult: “Adding insult to injury, your agency is considering replacing the Clean Power Plan with regulations that will not reduce power-sector carbon emissions,” the comments read. “Worse, they will likely increase electricity costs and the emissions of traditional air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide.”

• The studies: They cite recent studies by scientists at Harvard’s School of Public Health and other universities that show a plan that deals only with power plants, not state emissions and renewable energy, would drive up sulfur dioxide emissions by 3 percent “and result in premature lives lost.”

EPA WATCHDOG OPENS PROBE INTO PRUITT’S $50-PER-NIGHT CONDO RENTAL: The EPA’s inspector general said Friday it has opened an investigation into Pruitt’s $50-per-night condo rental, just a day after the embattled leader was grilled by two House subcommittees about various ethics and spending accusations.

EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins said in a letter that he will add the condo probe to investigations the office has started on Pruitt’s frequent first-class travel, security spending, hiring practices, and reported retaliation against employees who question him.

Democratic lawmakers had requested a probe of the condo lease.

• Take me home: Pruitt, upon moving to Washington from Oklahoma, rented a bedroom in a condo owned by the wife of energy lobbyist J. Steven Hart, who had business before the EPA.

The top ethics official of the EPA, Kevin Minoli, said this month he did not have full information when he ruled that the lease agreement reflected fair market value and did not violate federal gift rules.

PRUITT ORDERS OTHER EPA OFFICIALS TO APPROVE HIS EXPENSES: Pruitt issued a memo Friday advising agency officials that all of his expenses of more than $5,000 will need to be approved by chief of staff Ryan Jackson, Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler and Chief Financial Officer Holly Greaves.

The carefully worded memo, obtained by the Washington Examiner, says those officials, all political appointees, “will have final approval over expenditures by agency personnel over $5,000 made on my behalf to execute my official duties.”

• ‘Take responsibility’: Pruitt in testimony before Congress Thursday vowed to “take responsibility” for various ethics and spending accusations that have imperiled his job, assuring lawmakers he will “make changes,” but blaming the media for reporting “half truths” and saying critics want to derail his deregulatory agenda.

• With a catch: But he downplayed his involvement in the various issues during the House hearings, mostly blaming lower-level employees for decisions he said he did not know about.

EPA GRANTS BIOFUELS WAIVER TO FORMER TRUMP ADVISER CARL ICAHN: The EPA has granted a financial hardship waiver to a refinery owned by Carl Icahn, a billionaire former adviser to President Trump, exempting his Oklahoma-based CVR Energy, Reuters reported Monday.

The EPA has been granting waivers to oil refiners recently to avoid meeting the nation’s Renewable Fuel Standard.

• Not for you: The waivers, meant for small refiners, take the companies off the hook for blending ethanol.

CVR Energy had been had been denied the exemptions by former President Barack Obama’s administration.

• Target of probe: Icahn is under investigation by the Justice Department for trying to change biofuels policy when he was an informal adviser to Trump.

Icahn resigned as special adviser to the president in August because of potential conflicts created by his advisory role.

• Lobbying Trump: He pressed the Trump administration to change a requirement that refiners be held responsible for ensuring that corn-based ethanol is mixed into gasoline.

MARATHON TO BUY ANDEAVOR, CREATING LARGEST US REFINERY: Marathon, the second largest refiner in the U.S., announced plans Monday to purchase rival pipeline and refining company Andeavor, the fifth largest refiner, for more than $20 billion.

The combined company would become the largest U.S. refiner.

• Coast to coast: The Wall Street Journal, which broke the news, notes the companies made the deal because of their complementary footprints, with Marathon operating six refineries in the Midwest and Gulf Coast, and Andeavor running 10 refineries in the western U.S, which could make it easier to earn regulatory approval.

ENERGY DEPARTMENT GIVING $19 MILLION FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLE AND BATTERY RESEARCH: The Energy Department announced Monday it is providing $19 million to support 12 research projects focused on battery and electric vehicle technologies that can enable faster charging of the cars.

The technologies aim to shorten charging times to 15 minutes or less.

PJM STARTS FUEL SECURITY INITIATIVE: PJM, the grid operator of the nation’s largest power market, began an initiative Monday to study fuel security in its region, which it defines as risk to fuel supply and delivery to generators.

PJM aims to analyze fuel security vulnerabilities and establish criteria to assess areas in the system that could face fuel security issues, the grid operator said.

• Reform through ‘competitive markets’: “Competitive markets remain the best mechanism to maintain a reliable and fuel secure system at the lowest reasonable cost to customers,” PJM President and CEO Andrew L. Ott said. “We have the ability to identify risks to the system and to put a value on resources that offset that risk.”

• No ‘bailout’: PJM has denounced an emergency request from Ohio utility First Energy to the Energy Department that would bail out struggling coal and nuclear plants across the PJM region, covering 13 states from Illinois to D.C.

The company wants the Energy Department to require PJM to enter into contracts with coal and nuclear plants to provide electricity “as needed to maintain the stability of the electric grid.” Critics say that would upend competitive power markets by bailing out economically failing resources.

• PJM’s approach: PJM says the grid’s reliability is not urgently at risk. But it has offered a proposal that would change how power providers are compensated as the grid transitions, rewarding sources that can provide reliable and resilient service. It would be market-neutral, in which all power sources, not just coal and nuclear, could receive enhanced payments.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PROPOSES WEAKENING OFFSHORE DRILLING SAFETY RULES: The Trump administration would weaken a key offshore drilling rule imposed after 2010 BP oil spill under a proposal announced Friday.

• Changeup: The changes would affect 59 of the Blowout Preventer Systems and Well Control Rule’s 342 provisions. For example, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement is proposing to relax mandates for real-time monitoring of offshore operations, deeming the requirements “prescriptive.”

Another change would eliminate a requirement that BSEE must certify the third-party vendors who inspect offshore oil equipment such as blowout preventers for safety.

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill was caused by BP’s lack of maintenance of the blowout valve.

INTERIOR DEADLINE ON DRILLING IN ARCTIC: The Interior Department has reached its deadline for comments to be submitted on the sale of oil leases in the Beaufort Sea in Alaska.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a call for information on a proposed sale in the “Beaufort Sea Planning Area” late next year. The sale is part of the new Trump five-year drilling lease plan for 2019-2024 that it announced in January.

• No decision: The call is not a “decision” to lease nor is it “a prejudgment” by the Interior secretary, the agency says.

• Zinke’s bold move: Members of the Alaska delegation sent Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke a letter this year saying his aggressive lease plan, covering nearly all offshore areas in Alaska, was too aggressive and needed to be re-thought.

FEDS MOVE ONE STEP CLOSER TO BUILDING NEXT GENERATION OF NUCLEAR PLANTS: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the design for one of the most promising small nuclear reactors on Monday.

The federal regulator’s approval means the most intensive phase of approving a new generation of more affordable, and hence smaller, nuclear power plants is in sight.

The company looking to build the plant is NuScale. It has been looking to develop the small modular power plants for nearly a decade. Now, it looks like it is set to happen under President Trump.

“NuScale’s is the first and only small modular reactor (SMR) application to ever undergo NRC review,” the company said Monday. “This major achievement brings NuScale Power closer to introducing the country’s first SMR to market, putting the U.S. on a path to beat foreign competitors like Russia and China at a global SMR race.”

DEADLINE FOR PRUITT’S COAL ASH RULE: The EPA’s deadline for submitting comments about its coal ash rule is midnight.

The EPA is proposing to update a portion of the Obama-era regulation targeting the coal industry that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the agency to modify two years ago.  

The updates would add some new stringency to the rule after the EPA lost to environmentalists, including adding boron to list of chemicals in the coal waste that needs monitored.

RUNDOWN

Bloomberg ‘Cyber blindspot’ threatens energy companies spending too little

Washington Post A Yellowstone geyser has experienced unusual eruptions lately — and scientists can’t explain why

Wall Street Journal Oil’s biggest benchmark, Brent, needs more oil

PBS Newshour Coal ash raising concerns about health risk in Puerto Rico

E&E News California agriculture lawyer to lead EPA’s Region 9

Bloomberg Tesla doesn’t burn fuel, it burns cash

Wall Street Journal Saudi Aramco shakes up board, adds first female director