** A report released Thursday by Ember, an independent energy think tank, shows the U.S. is still among the world’s top coal users. It casts doubts on Climate Envoy John Kerry’s boast at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Scotland that the U.S. coal production will be phased out by 2030.
** Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said on Thursday he opposes a proposal in President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion social spending and climate legislation that would give union-made U.S. electric vehicles a $4,500 tax incentive.
** President Biden plans to visit a Michigan GM electric vehicle plant next week as the administration pushes Congress to pass tax incentives for zero-emission vehicles.
** The American Petroleum Institute’s (API) president and CEO tells Fox News that Biden administration policies are a key factor in surging energy prices, and he expressed concern for consumers heading into winter months.
** The North Dakota Senate passes a bill that includes spending $150 million of federal pandemic relief funds on a cross-state natural gas pipeline.
** U.S. solar and wind growth is on pace to notch records in 2022, pushed there by government incentives and private-sector demand, a new report from S&P Global Market Intelligence says.
** Six U.S. oil executives detained in Venezuela for four years on corruption charges have been granted a hearing before an appeals court, a rare decision by the judicial system in the South American country.
** The federal government says California is ineligible for about $12 billion in public transit funding because of a long-running dispute over changes to the state’s public pension law that the Biden administration recently determined are improper.
World
** Exxon Mobil is in discussions with Dutch contractor SBM Offshore NV to build a fourth multibillion-dollar production unit to develop its Guyana oil discoveries, two people close to the negotiations said reported Reuters.
** Senior energy ministry officials from Russia and the United States discussed the stabilization of oil markets on the sidelines of the COP26 conference in Glasgow.
** OPEC on Thursday cut its world oil demand forecast for the last quarter of 2021 as high energy prices curb the recovery from COVID-19, delaying the timeline for a return to pre-pandemic levels of oil use until later in 2022.
** Large parts of the world are not ready for zero-emission vehicles, which is why Toyota Motor Corp did not sign a pledge this week to phase out fossil-fuel cars by 2040, the world’s largest automaker said on Thursday.