** Environmentalists are fuming after the Department of the Interior auctioned leases to drill for oil in an 80-million-acre section of the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday morning. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management sold 308 tracts covering 1.7 million acres to fossil fuel giants such as Chevron and ExxonMobil.
** U.S. oil majors Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp were among the top buyers at a federal auction of oil leases in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday that generated more than $190 million – the highest since 2019.
** President Biden has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether oil and gas companies are artificially boosting the cost of gasoline.
** American long-haul truck drivers are “seriously underutilized,” and the problem comes from the scheduling practices of shippers and receivers, an expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tells U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday.
** Exxon Mobil Corp on Wednesday offered to lease a half million acres off the Texas coast, securing space for what could become a massive project to capture and store carbon emissions.
** President Joe Biden has asked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to release more crude oil from its reserves in concert with the U.S., in a bid to stabilize international oil prices.
** Louisiana U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, the top Republican on the Energy and Water subcommittee on Appropriations, says he’ll put a block on a Biden energy nominee if the administration doesn’t object to Mexico’s seizures of U.S. oil supplies.
** The Toyota bZ4X, the first electric vehicle under the automaker’s new bZ brand, will come to the U.S. in mid-2022 with an estimated range of up to 250 miles.
** Deere & Co. union workers ratified a new labor contract with the company Wednesday to return to plants across the U.S., putting an end to their first strike since 1986.
** Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law a tax incentives package Tuesday that state lawmakers hope will help Illinois become a manufacturing hub for the budding electric vehicle industry.
** A western Virginia citizens group sues to stop a mountain wind farm, taking issue with a recent decision to grant the project a pandemic-related deadline extension.
** A federal jury finds four former coal company officials not guilty of dodging federal dust rules at two underground Kentucky mines.
** Entergy Louisiana tells regulators it owes up to $4.4 billion for restoring power after a string of storms, needs a $1 billion loan to meet short-term costs, and will likely need to increase customers’ bills by $11-15 per month for the next 15 years.
World
** Belarus shuts down Russian oil pipeline to EU, despite Putin’s warnings. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko took the action in a growing dispute over migrants who want to move to Poland.
** Energy infrastructure companies were scrambling on Wednesday to restore pipelines in British Columbia that were shut down by catastrophic flooding, as natural gas prices in the region spiked higher and fears of gasoline shortages grew.
