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TRUMP GOES ON TWEETING SPREE TO SHOW CHINA WANTS U.S. ENERGY AND MORE: President Trump was off to an early start on Wednesday tweeting out reports that China had begun making due on what he said was an agreement reached over the weekend for the Asian powerhouse to begin importing more U.S. products.

Of course that includes liquefied natural gas imports and oil from the United States. Trump quoted an excerpt from a Bloomberg story that read: “Chinese officials have begun preparing to restart imports of U.S. Soybeans & Liquified Natural Gas, the first sign confirming the claims of President Donald Trump and the White House that …”

Earlier in the week, the first imports of U.S. crude oil reached Chinese shores after the country stopped purchasing the fuel altogether over the summer, which was most likely a result of Iran discounting its oil to sell more to China ahead of Trump sanctions, in addition to the trade war.

“Very strong signals being sent by China once they returned home from their long trip, including stops, from Argentina,” Trump explained Wednesday morning in a number of tweets meant to address uncertainty over what China pledged over the weekend at the G20 meeting in Buenos Aires. Trump announced that a truce in the trade war was reached, but few details were divulged on what China would do, despite Trump relaying that China had agreed to take down trade barriers.

“Not to sound naive or anything, but I believe President Xi meant every word of what he said at our long and hopefully historic meeting. ALL subjects discussed!” Trump assured on Wednesday morning.

He then went into a tweet spree on China’s need to ban the drug Fentanyl, saying if “China cracks down on this ‘horror drug,’ using the Death Penalty for distributors and pushers, the results will be incredible!”

Later, he railed at OPEC ahead of Thursday’s meeting in Vienna to decide on oil production cuts.

“Hopefully OPEC will be keeping oil flows as is, not restricted. The World does not want to see, or need, higher oil prices!” the president tweeted.

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 CONFLATES MACRON SUSPENDING FUEL TAX WITH ‘FLAWED’ PARIS AGREEMENT: Trump appeared to claim Tuesday evening that French President Emmanuel Macron “agreed” with his conclusion that the Paris climate agreement is flawed, although Macron hasn’t done so.

In a pair of tweets, Trump commented on Macron temporarily suspending a rise in fuel taxes following several days of violent protests across France, conflating the issue with the international accord aimed at combating global warming.

“I am glad that my friend @EmmanuelMacron and the protestors in Paris have agreed with the conclusion I reached two years ago,” Trump said.

“The Paris Agreement is fatally flawed because it raises the price of energy for responsible countries while whitewashing some of the worst polluters in the world,” he continued. “I want clean air and clean water and have been making great strides in improving America’s environment. But American taxpayers — and American workers — shouldn’t pay to clean up others countries’ pollution.”

What’s really happening: The protesters, many of whom are sporting yellow vests, are demonstrating against the fuel tax increase that Macron announced earlier this year as a way to combat the use of fossil fuels, as well as other economic and societal issues.

The unrest is happening as world leaders gather in Poland to discuss the creation of a so-called rulebook for implementing the Paris Agreement with the U.S. neglecting to send a high-level delegation.

Environmentalists don’t want to blame fuel taxes: The nonpartisan environmental think tank World Resources Institute argued that Trump’s tweet was “wildly inaccurate” and obscured the reality of the protests.

“The wrong message to take away from the situation in France would be that carbon or fuel taxes are a bad idea,” said Helen Mountford, vice president for climate and economics at the  think tank, on Wednesday.

“We have numerous examples of successful carbon taxes around the world, including those that have been designed to ensure low-income households or vulnerable communities are better off than they would have been without the tax,” she added.

STEYER DELIVERS MESSAGE TO TRUMP AT U.N. CLIMATE CONFERENCE: Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer, an advocate of impeaching Trump, descended on the U.N. climate summit on Wednesday to deliver a staunch message to the president and the GOP.

“While Donald Trump and the Republican Party may be willing to auction off the future of the planet to the highest bidder in the fossil fuel industry, the American people remain committed to taking action to avoid the most cataclysmic effects of climate change,” Steyer said in a statement ahead of addressing the conference.

“At COP 24, Americans will sit at the table to make progress and discuss courageous solutions to the greatest challenge of our time — regardless of who occupies the White House,” he said.

Steyer’s activist group NextGen said he will speak at the U.S. Climate Action Center, meeting with global leaders, and meet with local youth to discuss averting the worst effects of climate change.

The U.S. Climate Action Center represents states and local government leaders from both sides of the aisles looking to support the goals of the Paris climate agreement. The U.N. meeting is expected to take the first major step in defining the rules for implementing the 2015 agreement between nearly 200 countries. Trump had announced his decision to exit the agreement on June 1, 2017.

EVEN OIL-RICH SAUDI ARABIA SUPPORT THE PARIS CLIMATE DEAL: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman put his best foot forward on Tuesday in announcing that the kingdom would be upping its support for the Paris climate accord, while at the same time the CIA was briefing senators on his likely role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih conveyed the crown prince’s support for strengthening the oil-rich kingdom’s commitment upon arriving at the United Nations climate meeting in Katowice, Poland, according to the Saudi government-run news agency. Al-Falih led the Saudi delegation on behalf of the crown prince and his father, King Salman.

Meanwhile, CIA Director Gina Haspel had just finished up a classified briefing on Tuesday with Congress on the murder of Khashoggi, where senators emerged saying they were convinced that crown prince Mohammed was behind the October killing in Turkey.

Read more from John’s coverage here.

TRUMP’S EPA TO MAKE IT EASIER TO BUILD NEW COAL PLANTS: The Environmental Protection Agency is expected Thursday to propose weakening an Obama-era rule that would have required new coal plants to be built with expensive technology that captures carbon emissions from their smokestacks.

Industry sources told Josh that the Trump administration’s EPA will introduce a replacement rule regulating emissions from new coal plants that would not force them to be built with carbon capture and storage, also known as CCS.

The coal industry had argued that the Obama administration’s New Source Performance Review Standard would be a de facto ban on new coal plants, because it effectively would have mandated carbon capture, which is technically feasible but cost-prohibitive in many cases.

EPA wants higher-efficiency coal plants: The Trump EPA’s version of the rule would soften the standard, encouraging so-called higher efficiency critical or supercritical power plants that burn coal at higher temperatures than conventional technologies.

Coal industry gives thanks: “We are supportive of EPA’s decision to revise the standards for new coal plants,” Michelle Bloodworth, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, told Josh. “If we are ever going to build new coal plants in the country again, we will need reasonable standards.”

Carbon capture is key for climate: Recent reports by the United Nations and U.S. federal government, however, say implementing carbon capture is necessary for keeping the world under 1.5 degrees Celsius to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

MEANWHILE…US COAL CONSUMPTION IS EXPECTED TO BE LOWEST IN 39 YEARS: The federal government projected Tuesday that U.S. coal consumption in 2018 will fall 4 percent from last year, reaching its lowest level since 1979.

The Energy Information Administration said coal consumption this year will be 44 percent lower than 2007, mainly because of declines in coal use in the electric power sector.

Coal plants are retiring at a rapid pace, and the ones that exist are being used less because of lower cost natural gas and renewables.

More than 500 coal plants have retired since 2007, the EIA said. And few new coal plants are planned, despite the Trump administration’s overtures. Only one, relatively small, new coal-fired plant with a capacity of 17 megawatts is expected to come online by the end of 2019, EIA said.

MAJOR UTILITY PLANS TO BE CARBON-FREE BY 2050: U.S. utility Xcel Energy pledged Tuesday to provide all of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2050, the first large utility to set such a target.

Xcel, which provides power to western and midwestern states, also announced it aims to cut emissions 80 percent by 2030. As of last year, the utility provided 40 percent of its electricity from zero-carbon sources.

Utilities are sending a message: The move shows how utilities are not expressing much interest in the Trump administration’s bid to help keep their coal plants alive, or build new ones, remaining committed instead to providing energy from cleaner and cheaper sources such as natural gas, wind, and solar.

Xcel had already earned regulatory approval Aug. 27 to shutter two coal units at the Comanche Generating Station in Pueblo, Colo. a decade earlier than the company expected. Xcel, one of the the nation’s leading wind energy providers, also plans to retire two coal units in Minnesota.

RICK PERRY SAYS APPALACHIA WILL BECOME DOMINANT PETROCHEMICAL HUB: Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Tuesday that Appalachia will help the U.S. gain a sizable share of the global petrochemical market because of the growth in natural gas production the region has experienced in the past decade.

“We have done good work in developing the abundance of the Permian Basin and the Gulf of Mexico — and there’s still much more we can do — but we also have a special opportunity in the Appalachian region,” Perry said in a speech at the annual National Petroleum Council Meeting.

Don’t forget about us: Perry said that, because of the low-cost resources in the Marcellus and Utica shales in West Virginia, Eastern Ohio, and Western Pennsylvania, the Trump administration would support an ethane storage hub located in the region.

Perry quipped that, were Appalachia an independent country, “[it] would be the third-largest national gas producer in the world,” he said.

Without a hub in the region, all of the natural gas liquids extracted from the shales are shipped elsewhere or burnt off, which removes potential economic profits or literally burns them in the air.

SCHUMER ATTACKS FERC NOMINEE MCNAMEE AHEAD OF VOTE: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York lobbied against FERC nominee Bernard McNamee ahead of a procedural vote on his nomination Wednesday.

“The Senate should not confirm Bernard McNamee for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,” Schumer said in Twitter post. “McNamee has a long record of biased promotion of fossil fuels & hostility to renewables.”

The Senate will hold a cloture vote for McNamee today at 4 p.m., setting up a final vote for Thursday. Despite Schumer’s opposition, McNamee is likely to be confirmed along party-lines, with a potentially a few Democratic defectors like Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

STATE DEPARTMENT SEES WEAKENING GERMAN SUPPORT FOR RUSSIAN GAS PIPELINE: Russia’s violent closure of the Kerch Strait, the sole shipping lane to a major Ukrainian port city, is undermining German support for Russia’s proposed natural gas pipeline to western Europe, according to the State Department.

“When you have a naked act of aggression like that, I think it resonates in German public opinion,” a senior State Department official told reporters after a meeting of NATO’s council on Black Sea security. “We’ve seen some indications in our recent conversations with German officials that they’ve absorbed that message more plainly after Kerch.”

U.S. officials have been lobbying Germany not to proceed with the development of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a natural gas pipeline that would circumvent Ukraine and thereby allow Russia to sell gas to western Europe without paying transit fees to its former vassal state.

RUNDOWN

Washington Post France’s protesters are part of a global backlash against climate-change taxes

New York Times Playing host to climate conference, Poland promotes coal

Wall Street Journal Saudi-Russia ties raise concerns among OPEC members

NBC News Enormous ‘energy kite’ promises new way to harness wind power

Bloomberg Saudi oil minister attacks Macron’s move to raise fuel prices

SPONSOR MESSAGE: In 2018 the United States continued to drill its way toward energy independence. With the country now producing record-setting amounts of oil and natural gas, the need for infrastructure to transport those resources – from the Bakken, Marcellus, and Permian shale formations all the way to New England – is more important than ever. Fortunately, midstream projects such as the now-complete Rover Pipeline and expanding Dakota Access Pipeline are setting the stage for safe and efficient energy transportation across the U.S. GAIN is hopeful that 2019 will be another momentous year for American energy. To learn more head to www.gainnow.org or follow us @GAINNowAmerica.