Energy news in brief

** Democrats and Republicans argue over whether President Joe Biden should revoke the permits for a $9.4 billion chemical manufacturing complex in Louisiana that would emit pollutants and carbon and disproportionately affect Black neighborhoods.

** India’s growing demand for oil and its plans to rely less on crude from its biggest supply region, the Middle East, is set to support demand for oil tankers traveling on longer routes to the world’s third-largest oil importer.

** Rivian, the EV startup backed by Amazon, Cox Automotive and T. Rowe Price, plans to install more than 10,000 chargers by the end of 2023. The company said that its so-called Rivian Adventure Network will include more than 3,500 DC fast chargers at over 600 sites, which will only be accessible to owners of its electric vehicles.

** A proposed 1,200-acre Vesper Energy solar farm near Xenia, Ohio is being fought by residents because it would remove the farmland from agricultural production.

** A four-year, $9.7 million study of an advanced oil recovery method could unlock billions more barrels of oil on Alaska’s North Slope.

** “I know Indian Country is watching everything we do at Interior:” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland meets with Indigenous activists and media outlets during her first day on the job.

** The Petroleum Association of Wyoming joins a lawsuit challenging President Biden’s moratorium on new federal oil and gas leasing.

** The CEO of St. Louis-based Peabody Energy plans to step down this year after leading the company through a bankruptcy restructuring.

** The Rover natural gas pipeline developer faces a potential $20.2 million fine for allegedly misleading federal regulators about the destruction of an Ohio farmhouse during the project’s construction.

** A Virginia man is sentenced to two and a half years in prison for bilking $228,000 from a recently widowed retired teacher by falsely promising he’d build a solar farm on her rural North Carolina property.

** Dozens of Pennsylvania lawmakers want Gov. Tom Wolf to take “immediate action” after a non-profit newsroom found evidence that families living near fracking wells are exposed to harmful chemicals.