U.S. Energy News

Chinese backing clean energy projects across U.S.

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INVESTMENT: Chinese companies are investing in solar farms, wind farms, electric vehicle manufacturing plants and other clean energy projects across the United States. (Center for American Progress)

ENERGY POLICY: Measures that would end the oil export ban, ease restrictions on offshore drilling, support energy efficiency and upgrade the nation’s grid won approval Thursday from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. (U.S. News & World Report)

CLEAN POWER PLAN: More than 170 evangelical leaders have sent President Obama a letter backing the Clean Power Plan, saying 230,000 “pro-life Christians” have contacted the EPA in support of the plan. (Religion News Service)

SOLAR: NASCAR on Thursday named Maryland-based SunEdison as the “official solar energy partner of NASCAR Green.” (St.

U.S. Energy News

Coal giant posts $1 billion in quarterly losses

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COAL:
• Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company, posted a net loss of $1 billion for the last quarter, suspended dividends and will cut 550 jobs. (Responding to Climate Change)
• Senators Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) introduced a bill Wednesday to raise government revenues from coal mined on federal land. (The Hill)

CLEAN POWER PLAN:
• President Obama is prepared to defend the EPA’s Clean Power Plan with his veto pen, even if riders come attached to must-pass legislation, a White House Chief spokesman said Wednesday. (Greenwire)
• With the EPA set to unveil its final rules to cut emissions from power plants, some companies that support the plan are pressing for a carbon trading program so costs don’t surge. (Bloomberg)

CRUDE EXPORTS: House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) called Wednesday for Congress to lift the 40-year ban on crude oil exports, which likely sets the stage for a major policy battle this fall on Capitol Hill.

U.S. Energy News

EPA will give states more time to comply with Clean Power Plan

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POWER PLANT EMISSIONS:
• The Obama administration has decided to give states more time to comply with cuts in carbon emissions from power plants required under the proposed Clean Power Plan, people familiar with the plans said Tuesday. (The Washington Post)
• A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered the EPA to relax some limits it set on air pollution from power plants that cross state lines. (Associated Press)
• Maryland regulators unveiled a plan Tuesday for reducing pollution from coal-burning power plants, which drew criticism from both the industry and environmentalists. (The Baltimore Sun)

CARBON CAP: Frustrated by legislative inaction on climate, Washington state’s governor plans to wield his executive authority to impose a binding cap on carbon emissions. (The Seattle Times)

SOLAR: SolarCity wants to outfit the rooftops of small and midsize businesses with solar panels by offering a new financing strategy to a market that the company says is largely untapped.

U.S. Energy News

Major green groups come out against Senate energy reform bill

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ENERGY POLICY: Eleven major green groups came out against a Senate energy policy reform bill on Monday, saying “several provisions in this bill… could cause detrimental effects to public health and our environment.” (The Hill)

OFFSHORE WIND: The developer of the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm has installed the first steel foundation for the project off Rhode Island’s coast. (The Hill)

CLEAN POWER PLAN: In countless meetings on the Clean Power Plan with states and energy companies, the most common plea to the EPA was for more time, and that is the element most likely to change in the rule’s final version. (ClimateWire)

EMISSIONS: Fertilizing crops in the U.S. Corn Belt emits the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, and a new University of Minnesota study shows officials have been underestimating those emissions by as much as 40 percent. (Minnesota Public Radio)

FRACKING: Proponents and opponents of New York state’s fracking ban agree that use of gelled propane instead of water in fracking could be exempt from the ban.

U.S. Energy News

Investors flee oil sector as number of drilling rigs rises

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OIL INVESTORS:
• The world’s big energy groups have shelved $200 billion of spending on new projects in an urgent round of cost-cutting aimed at protecting investors’ dividends as oil prices slumps for a second time this year. (Financial Times)
• Speculators’ conviction that oil will rally weakened at the fastest pace in three years, just before futures tumbled in New York into a bear market. (Bloomberg)
OIL RIGS: The number of U.S. oil-drilling rigs in operation rose last week to 659, 21 more than the previous week. (FuelFix)

CLEAN POWER PLAN:
• Fourteen states, led by West Virginia, want all 17 judges on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to hear the case that a three-judge panel rejected last month against the EPA’s Clean Power Plan for existing power plants. (The Hill)
• Mississippi’s Republican governor told the EPA that his state does not see how it can “reasonably” comply with the Clean Power Plan rule limiting carbon emissions from power plants.