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TRUMP SEEKS TO CUT OFF IRAN’S OIL WEALTH: President Trump’s decision to re-impose sanctions on Iran Monday is just the opening salvo in a 90-day march to go after the regime’s largest source of revenue — oil.

‘Cutting off’: “We are intent on cutting off the regime’s access to resources that they have systematically used to finance terror, fund weapons proliferation, and threaten peace and stability in the region,” a senior administration official explained to reporters on Monday.

The day after U.S. elections: The administration’s effort that began at midnight Tuesday will ratchet up on November 5 by targeting Iran’s oil exports with secondary sanctions that are aimed at blocking countries from purchasing energy from Iran or making investments in the country’s oil resources.

90 days of ‘pressure’: “The next 90 days will see increased economic pressure, culminating in the re-imposition of petroleum sector sanctions in November,” said a second senior official on a call with reporters. “And this will have an exponential effect on Iran’s already fragile economy.”

Time to ‘snapback’: “The final round of snapback sanctions…will include the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran’s oil exports and energy sector, financial institutions conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran, as well as sanctions related to Iran’s port operators and shipping and shipbuilding sectors, and sanctions on the provision of insurance and financial messaging services,” the first official explained.

Convincing the world: Although countries like China are likely to continue buying oil from Iran after sanctions, the White House said it is continuing efforts to get countries on board when it comes to agreeing not to import Iran’s oil.

The administration is working to “build a global coalition to counter Iran’s malign activity,” the official said.

‘Aggressively enforce’: But make no mistake, the administration will act aggressively to enforce the sanctions, according to the White House.

“What I can tell you very specifically is that we have made it very clear that we’re going to aggressively enforce this executive order and the other authorities that we have pursuant to statute,” the official said on the call.

Coal in the crosshairs: As of Tuesday, the Trump administration’s sanctions will block the sale of coal and other minerals from Iran.

The sale or transfer to or from Iran of graphite and metals such as aluminum, steel, and coal will be blocked by sanctions, the White House said.

China and Iran build new coal plant: Iran has a large coal reserve and is building the large $1 billion Tabas coal-fired power plant with China.

Iran ramping up coal production: Iran’s domestic coal production is expected to increase by more than 2 million tons per year when improved coal mining and processing facilities begin operation in 2020, according to Energy Information Administration.

Iran has not historically been a big coal user or producer, but that is changing for it and other Mideast countries, according to EIA.

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.

A LESSON FOR TRUMP ON HOW YOU FIGHT WILDFIRES: President Trump said on Twitter that California is wasting water that can be used to fight wildfires ravaging the state. But the pouring of water onto flames is not even the primary means to fight wildfires.

“For someone who lives in a city like President Trump, you might think of putting out a fire with a hose, and you can understand why he might think that,” Michael Wara, a research fellow at Stanford Law School focused on climate and energy policy, told Josh. “It’s just not the way wildfires are controlled. When you have 200 square miles with fire, there is just no way you can put it out with water.

Box out: Firefighters do use water as a secondary resource to fight wildfires, usually by slowing their progress. But mainly, firefighters extinguish wildfires by building fire lines around them to contain their spread.

Firelines are circular boundaries that firefighters create by using bulldozers to clear away all living material, such as brush, that can fuel more fire. Officials scrap down the boundary area so that there’s just bare dirt left. They get rid of whatever flammable material remains by lighting controlled fires.

Water wars: Trump, in the first of two tweets he posted Sunday and Monday, said California wildfires “are being made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized.”

The president expanded on his water policy comment on Monday, writing that California officials are allowing water to “foolishly [be] diverted into the Pacific Ocean.”

The president appears to refer to the long-running controversy over diversion of water away from people in Northern California in order to provide a habitat to preserve endangered fish species. Some Republicans in Congress have called for a larger water allocation for farmers in California’s Central Valley, which has suffered from drought.

But Trump is taking a further leap suggesting that this would make the water more available for firefighting efforts.

‘Not a constraint’: State officials, however, say water access is not a problem for California’s firefighting efforts. Water is typically used to slow down a fire if it approaches a fire line barrier, for example, or to stop a fire from encroaching on a home.

“There is no environmental regulation that prevents firefighters from accessing any body of water they want to use in the state,” LeRoy Westerling, a management professor at the University of California, Merced, who studies wildfires, told Josh. “It’s not their first choice, and it’s not a binding constraint in any way.”

CALIFORNIA FIRE BECOMES STATE’S LARGEST EVER: Two of California’s ongoing wildfires, known collectively as the Mendocino Complex, have become the largest such fires ever recorded in the state.

These fires, which began July 27, have more than doubled in size the last four days, burning 283,800 acres, an area almost the size of Los Angeles, Cal Fire, the main responding agency, said Monday.

Broken record: The Mendocino Complex has surpassed the Thomas Fire from last year that burned nearly 282,000 acres.

“We broke the record,” Cal Fire spokesman Scott McLean said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “That’s one of those records you don’t want to see.”

Counting the toll: There were 17 wildfires burning through California as of Monday. The Carr Fire, the most deadly of them — blamed for seven deaths — was 47 percent contained.

Trump has declared a “major disaster” in the state, providing federal resources.

FEDERAL COURT DEALS ANOTHER BLOW TO ATLANTIC COAST PIPELINE: A federal appeals court on Monday rejected the National Park Service’s approval of a portion of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the latest blow against the controversial project.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals said the agency failed to show how the permit allowing the pipeline to cross the Blue Ridge Parkway was compliant with the purposes of the national park system.

Double take: The same court in May nixed a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permit for the project, ruling that the proposed route could harm wildlife in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

Shale provider: Dominion Energy’s 600-mile, $5.1 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline has been fiercely contested, facing local opposition in both states that would receive natural gas carried by it: Virginia and North Carolina.

The pipeline would transport Mid-Atlantic shale gas from northern West Virginia to eastern Virginia and North Carolina. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, approved the project in October. It has been projected to be completed by the end of the year.

What now: Dominion Energy, leading a coalition of four energy companies building the pipeline, said Monday it would address the court’s concerns, and seek new permits allowing the project to be built.

FERC OVERRULES NEW YORK’S DENIAL OF NORTHERN ACCESS PIPELINE: FERC on Monday overruled New York’s denial of the Northern Access Pipeline, allowing its construction to proceed.

New York had denied water permits to the 99-mile pipeline under section 401 of the Clean Water Act. FERC said New York waited too long to deny the permits, and thus gave up its authority.

Proxy fight: The decision is a proxy for battles over how Northeast states have used the water permits to block natural gas infrastructure projects.

Senate Republicans last month introduced a bill that they say would combat state “abuses” of this provision of the Clean Water Act to stop the construction of pipeline projects.

The bill amends section 401 by limiting the scope of reviews for projects to get a water quality certification.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SIGNALS SUPPORT FOR COMPROMISE BILL TO FIX NATIONAL PARKS: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is signaling he would likely support a bipartisan compromise House bill to pay for billions of dollars of repairs and maintenance in national parks.

Odd couple: Last month, Reps. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., introduced legislation to pay for repairs with money the government collects from the development of oil, natural gas, wind, and solar energy on public lands.

The introduction of the bill is significant because Bishop and Grijalva, who usually spar on public lands issues, agreed to a compromise that is somewhat similar to a Trump administration proposal to fund the Interior Department’s $16 billion maintenance backlog.

‘Closely aligns’ with Trump: “The secretary is very happy to see the House put forth a bipartisan bill to rebuild our national parks and other Interior Department infrastructure,” Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift told Josh. “This bill very closely aligns with President Trump’s budget proposal and the secretary has been pitching this idea for more than a year now. He believes the momentum is building for a bipartisan and bicameral solution.”

Scaled back plan: Zinke had proposed creating a new Public Lands Infrastructure Fund of up to $18 billion over 10 years for maintenance and improvements in national parks, wildlife refuges, and Bureau of Indian Education schools.

The new proposal by Bishop and Grijalva would create a similar pot of money, but the funding would be significantly less, providing $1.3 billion a year for five years, for a total of $6.5 billion.

The key difference: To win the backing of Grijalva, the new bill only uses unallocated energy revenue that is already due to the federal government from leasing on public lands, not new revenues from anticipated leases, which Democrats complained would incentivize further fossil fuel extraction on public land.

ELEVEN ATTORNEYS GENERAL OPPOSE TRUMP’S WEAKENING OF OFFSHORE DRILLING SAFETY RULES: A coalition of 11 Democratic attorneys general filed comments Monday to the Interior Department opposing the agency’s proposal to weaken a key offshore drilling rule imposed after the 2010 BP oil spill.

Monday was the deadline for public comment on the rewrite of the “Blowout Preventer Systems and Well Control Rule.”

‘Dangerous’ move: “Weakening safety regulations aimed at preventing another Deepwater Horizon disaster is dangerous and irresponsible,” said Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh.

In addition to Maryland, attorneys general of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Oregon, and Washington joined the coalition in submitting the comments.

What changes: The Trump administration’s proposed weakening of the rule reflects technical changes sought by the industry, which oil and natural gas groups say are modest and meant to align with industry standards, not a rollback of the regulation.

The original rule, issued in 2016 by the Obama administration, set minimum standards for drilling, well design and equipment maintenance in hopes of preventing another Deepwater Horizon disaster, when a blowout preventer device broke at the bottom of the sea, spewing almost 4 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico and killing 11 workers.

CLEARPATH SUPER PAC SUPPORTING REELECTION OF TWO MORE REPUBLICANS: The super PAC of conservative clean energy group Clear Path Foundation announced Tuesday it is backing the reelection of Rep. Steve Knight, R-Calif, and supporting Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., in her Senate bid.

ClearPath will soon start running digital ads supporting them.

“Both of these Western Republicans represent areas where clean, reliable power and environmental stewardship are essential to their local economies and way of life,” ClearPath Action Fund Founder Jay Faison said. “Reps. Knight and McSally have demonstrated a clear commitment to ably representing their constituencies through the pursuit of aggressive innovation goals and clean energy research.”

Check the record: ClearPath said Knight and McSally have been key in maintaining funding for the Energy Department’s energy innovation research program, ARPA-E, which the Trump administration aimed to eliminate.

Knight was a leading sponsor of the Better Energy Storage Technology (BEST) Act, which would establish “moonshot” goals to promote the development of cheaper energy storage technologies to capture solar energy when the sun isn’t shining, and wind when it’s not blowing.

McSally has voted to protect the Pentagon’s ability to study the effects of climate change on the military.

RUNDOWN

Reuters World at risk of heading toward irreversible ‘hothouse’ state

Washington Post Ocean temperature off San Diego coast is warmest in 102 years of measurements

Bloomberg Welcome to the ‘man camps’ of West Texas

Wall Street Journal Gasoline makers are reaping big profits

Chron.com Mexican energy sector overhaul could reduce U.S. export demand

Greentech Media Murray Energy quietly funds opposition to Ohio’s first offshore wind project