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TRUMP’S TOUGH TALK ABOUT TAKING RUSSIA’S OIL BUSINESS FACES SKEPTICISM: President Trump claims he has been tougher on Russia because rising U.S. oil exports have made it harder for Moscow to keep its share of the global energy market.

But the U.S. oil industry is skeptical of that claim, primarily because Russia appears to be increasing its oil exports in the last year, rather than losing out on market share to the U.S.

Russia upping its supply: In fact, Russia is increasing its supply of oil, even as it is supposed to be going along with an OPEC-led pledge to cut oil production in order to avoid an oil supply glut and drive up prices. Russia doesn’t appear to be meeting its end of the Saudi Arabia-led OPEC deal, said Sabrina Fang, spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute, the lead trade association for the U.S. oil industry.

“Russia is an enigma in that they have pledged cutbacks to OPEC, but [the International Energy Association] and OPEC data still show their supply increasing,” Fang said in an email.

Displacing OPEC: The only thing the U.S. oil industry can be certain of is that Mideast suppliers and OPEC have been in decline, she said. Their share has diminished as U.S. oil suppliers have stepped up to meet all new rising demand for oil, with the U.S. leading the world as the largest oil supplier.

It is OPEC members, countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, rather than Russia that have suffered more from the U.S. ramp-up in oil production, according to API’s analysis.

Russia and US in the lead: In fact, both Russia and the U.S. are projected to drive most of the growth in oil production in the new year among non-OPEC countries, according to OPEC’s monthly report released Jan. 17.

Read more here.

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COLD WEATHER SPARKS WARNINGS, ALERTS ACROSS US: Utility Southern California Gas Co. warned residents in its service area Monday to conserve their use of natural gas because of increased demand for home heating during a current spat of cold weather.

The utility issued a “dial it down” alert for Monday night through Thursday morning.

It requests Southern California residents conserve their energy especially at night, when natural gas demand is highest for home heating, hot water, and cooking. Southern California Gas Co. offered tips for conserving energy, saying residents should wash clothes with cold water, take shorter showers — and dress warmer.

It’s cold everywhere: Grid operator PJM Interconnection, meanwhile, extended a cold-weather alert until noon today for its entire 13-state region from Illinois to Virginia.

AMERICANS ARE INCREASINGLY WORRIED ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE: More than 70 percent of Americans say extreme weather events in the last five years have influenced their opinion of climate change, according to a poll released Tuesday.

Half of people polled said recent events such as deadly wildfires in California, and hurricanes in Houston, Florida, and Puerto Rico have influenced their thinking on climate change a “great deal” or a lot.

The poll of 1,202 adults was conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. It was conducted in November, before the release of a U.S. government report that said global warming will impose hundreds of billions of dollars of damages on the U.S. economy, much of it generated by disaster response and adaptation.

There’s a trend brewing: A second poll released Tuesday by Yale’s Program on Climate Change Communication found that a record number of respondents, 73 percent, said that global warming is happening. That’s a jump of 10 percentage points from the same poll in 2015.

What to do about it: Forty-four percent of respondents in the AP poll who believe climate change is happening support a carbon tax, while 25 percent said they neither support or oppose it.

Two-thirds of those support a carbon tax if the revenues were used for restoring forests and wetlands, and more than half support it if the proceeds were used for research and development of renewable energy and public transportation programs.

Those two methods outperformed an approach preferred by free-market groups, and some centrist Republicans, that would refund the tax revenue to American households. About 49 percent said they would favor a “tax rebate to all Americans.”

TOYOTA AND PANASONIC TEAM UP ON ELECTRIC VEHICLE BATTERIES: Toyota and Panasonic announced Tuesday morning a partnership to develop batteries for electric vehicles as a way to combat climate change.

Toyota, Japan’s leading automaker, and Panasonic, the Japanese electronics maker, will establish a joint venture focused on research and development of EV batteries, engineering, manufacturing, and sales.

The companies, which did not disclose how much money they would invest, said the venture will be running by the end of 2020.

“Today’s automotive world is also being called on by society to help find solutions to such issues as those related to global warming, resources and energy,” they said in a joint statement.

Challenges facing batteries and EVs: Electric vehicles are benefiting from lower prices for lithium-ion batteries and technical advances that are increasing how far a car can drive before having to be recharged and reducing recharging times. But some raw materials essential to electric vehicles remain scarce, there is a shortage of places to recharge, and battery-powered cars cost thousands of dollars more than most gasoline vehicles.

PIPELINE EXPLOSION IN OHIO FORCES EVACUATION FROM HOMES: An explosion of a natural gas pipeline in Ohio on Monday caused a fireball that damaged homes, prompting the evacuation of residents.

Enbridge, the Canadian-based pipeline operator, said two people were injured and two structures were damaged from the explosion.

The company said it shutdown the section of the pipeline that exploded.

The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has sent an investigator to the scene to probe how the explosion happened, the agency told Reuters.

The Texas Eastern pipeline, as it’s called, transports natural gas from the Gulf Coast and Texas to customers in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

INTERIOR’S BERNHARDT JOINS TRUMP AT MLK MEMORIAL: Interior Department Acting Secretary David Bernhardt joined Trump and Vice President Mike Pence Monday on a visit to the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington D.C.

While social media had fun poking Bernhardt about his relative anonymity, he clearly is in good standing with the president. Josh has previously reported Bernhardt has a strong chance of being nominated to stay on as Interior secretary, after replacing Ryan Zinke on an acting basis earlier this month.

CARBON PRICING DROPPED FROM NEW FRANCE-GERMANY TREATY: France and Germany removed carbon pricing from a list of bilateral initiatives to pursue in their new treaty, the European media outlet EURACTIV reported Tuesday.

The signing of the Elysée treaty is meant to cement the two countries post-war reconciliation. A previous version of the treaty mentioned carbon pricing as an area for France and Germany to work together.

The revised text says the countries will adopt “ambitious measures to fight climate change” and “act in close relationship” with one another “in order to formulate common approaches and policies,” but it does not mention carbon pricing.

A silver lining: France and Germany remain participants in the EU ETS, the European Union’s emissions trading program.

RUNDOWN

Bloomberg Corporate America tallies the mounting costs of climate change

National Geographic Greenland’s ice is melting four times faster than thought

New York Times An effort to bring fracking to Britain hits pause

Reuters Tesla holds battery supply talks with China’s Lishen

NPR In Wisconsin, farmers may soon be milking the profits of solar energy instead of cows