** House lawmakers voted 364 to 60 on Wednesday night to pass the The Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2021, a bipartisan bill aimed at curbing the shipping container crisis.
** The U.S. government plans to end purchases of gas-powered vehicles by 2035 in a move to lower emissions and promote electric cars under an executive order signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday. The government owns more than 650,000 vehicles and purchases about 50,000 annually.
** The United States will have the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity next year, exceeding the capacity of the top LNG exporters Australia and Qatar.
** A rushed transition into renewable energy would cause spiraling inflation and social unrest, the chief executive of Aramco warned at the World Petroleum Congress in Texas this week, noting that investments in oil and gas needed to continue in order to avoid such a scenario.
** The United States should produce and export more natural gas to tackle climate change, the country’s top producer EQT Corp said in response to U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren’s recent criticism of the energy sector for spiraling gas prices.
** Pipeline operator Enterprise Products Partners could repurpose some of its vast U.S. network of energy pipelines for carbon capture and sequestration projects, co-Chief Executive Jim Teague said.
** The Nebraska Public Service Commission names a retired Army National Guard colonel as its new executive director.
** Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee are throwing their heft behind a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Interior Department’s November Gulf of Mexico oil lease sale reports POLITICO.
World
** The International Trade Commission on Wednesday recommended that President Joe Biden provide four more years of import protection for solar cells and modules.
** Enbridge Inc. is evaluating two tolling options for its vast Mainline oil pipeline network after a proposal to offer long-term contracts to keep the conduits full was rejected by Canada’s energy regulator.
** China has stepped up its overseas search for ore needed to make aluminum. The country’s aluminum industry is the world’s biggest and is becoming increasingly dependent on overseas supplies of the ore needed to make the metal.
** Toyota Motor Corp has halted production at two factories in Japan due to a supply shortage, a spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday. The stoppage means that Toyota cannot return to normal operations in December as it had originally planned.
** The U.S. Navy seized 171 surface-to-air missiles, eight anti-tank missiles and 1.1 million barrels of petroleum products worth $261 million from two Iranian ships in the Arabian Sea in three separate instances since 2019, the Department of Justice said in a press release on Tuesday.
** The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) will provide up to $500 million in debt financing for the U.S. company First Solar’s plan to build a major module factory in India.
** The European Union is poised to propose requirements for member countries to renovate their worst-performing buildings by the end of the decade to cut emissions and make them more energy efficient, according to sources familiar with the proposals.
