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HIGH HEAT President Joe Biden is under renewed pressure to declare a national climate emergency as he travels to Hawaii today to tour the aftermath of the deadliest wildfire in modern U.S. history.
More than 110 people were killed in last week’s wildfires, which caused an estimated $5 billion in damages and opened the island’s primary utility, Hawaiian Electric, to class-action lawsuits and allegations of severe negligence.
“President Biden’s recent claim that he has ‘practically’ declared a climate emergency has renewed calls for him to actually do so,” the Los Angeles Times editorial board said in an op-ed this weekend. “And he should.”
Others, including Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), are also turning up the heat.
If the devastation in Hawaii isn’t a climate disaster, he told Politico this weekend, then “what is?”
“I refuse to accept that people choosing between burning alive or jumping into the ocean for hours on end is our new normal. This is a crisis, and we need to treat it that way. That starts with President Biden declaring a national climate emergency to unlock vast federal resources and emergency powers to help our communities prepare for and recover from these deadly climate disasters,” he added.
Why it matters: Biden was already under pressure to declare an emergency before the wildfires.
Calls for the emergency declaration come as many parts of the U.S. have been hit by record-hot summer temperatures, including areas like Phoenix and Texas, which have each recorded their longest-ever streaks of triple-digit temperatures in a row. Temperatures in Austin have reached or surpassed 100 degrees Fahrenheit for 44 days straight, an all-time record that has pushed up demand and added new reliability concerns for consumers.
Grid operators in Texas urged consumers this weekend to reduce their electricity use, including turning off large appliances and requesting all government agencies reduce energy use at their facilities, as demand climbed to a record-high level of 85,435 MW and prompted new blackout fears. ERCOT has so far shattered demand forecasts 10 times in a row, prompting some of the biggest reliability concerns since Winter Storm Uri, the 2021 storm that killed 246 Texans and left millions without power.
Meanwhile, parts of the Northeast and Midwest continue to face harmful air quality and smoke from the intense wildfires in Canada, which continue to burn through British Columbia and Yellowknife, prompting new evacuations and adding to the country’s worst-ever wildfire season on record.
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RISING TENSION BETWEEN MANCHIN AND BIDEN: The White House is torn over Sen. Joe Manchin’s fury at the climate bill he helped to write — and there’s a growing rift between the president and the Democratic senator from West Virginia, stemming from the administration’s implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act.
As the Washington Post lays out, Manchin is irate at the way the Biden administration is implementing the law — and he’s fighting back. Manchin has refused to hold a confirmation hearing for the reappointment of Richard Glick, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s chairman and a key ally of President Biden, after Glick’s term expired at the end of the year. The Democrat has also vowed to oppose appointments to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department — and has even publicly flirted with the idea of running for president in 2024.
Now, Biden and his aides are in the delicate position of trying to agree to Manchin’s demands where they can avoid antagonizing him more while still advancing a climate agenda that the senator strongly opposes — even though his vote last year made it possible in the first place. Read more on that here.
UPDATE ON OIL PRICES: Crude oil futures stabilized on Monday after briefly turning negative following gains of more than $1 earlier in the session as markets navigated between supply tightness against expectations of slow demand growth.
According to Reuters, Brent crude was up 14 cents to $84.94 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was up 18 cents at $81.43 a barrel by midmorning.
Both front-month benchmark prices snapped a seven-week winning streak last week with a weekly loss of 2%, on concern that China’s slow economic growth will curb oil demand, while the possibility of increases to U.S. interest rates also continues to cast a shadow over the demand outlook. More on that here.
CHINA EXPANDS LNG TRADING: China’s LNG imports are either starting up or expanding trading desks in London and Singapore as they aim to manage a growing, and notably more diverse, network of suppliers.
As Reuters reported, roughly 12 Chinese companies have been expanding their trade operations or adding new desks, with private company ENN Natural Gas and state-run China National Offshore Oil Corp being the latest to plan London offices. Utility China Gas Holdings is also setting up a Singapore operation, company officials and traders said.
Chinese gas importers have also boosted long-term LNG contracts with Qatar and U.S. suppliers by nearly 50% since late 2022, with plans to add more volumes to those countries, along with Oman, Canada, and Mozambique.
The beefed-up trading presence of Chinese importers puts them in direct competition with global heavyweights such as Shell, BP, Equinor, and TotalEnergies, for a market that the International Energy Agency said doubled in value to $450 billion last year. China is also vying with Japan to be the world’s largest LNG importer, although it’s not clear how much surplus or other volumes Chinese companies might have available to trade.
JPMORGAN COMPLIES WITH NEW EU ESG RULE: The asset management unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co. is diverging from its peers and voluntarily agreeing with a new European Union rule that requires fund managers to report their social and environmental impact, according to Bloomberg.
The firm issued an entity-level principal adverse impact (PAI) indicator statement, amid growing pressure on firms to show EU clients the effects their business has on the environment.
That’s as Mairead McGuinness, the EU’s financial markets and services commissioner, says firms that don’t take ESG seriously now could face a troubling future in the bloc.
The PAI rule, enforced on June 30, was created to provide a set of metrics that help clients compare asset managers operating in Europe, based on their negative ESG impact. The EU hopes the indicator will be a game changer after previous environmental, social, and governance requirements proved too complicated for many end investors.
The Rundown
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