** Swing vote Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) floated the idea of a “rebranded” or “rerouted” Keystone XL pipeline during a visit to Canada on Tuesday. “The brand of the XL pipeline is probably gone,” Manchin told reporters when asked about the chances of a revival of the never-completed vessel. “Can it be rebranded, can it be rerouted, can it be these different things?”
** Toyota, the top-selling automaker in the U.S., is rolling out its first fully electric vehicle in eight years. The company on Tuesday unveiled the battery-powered bZ4X small SUV, which starts at $42,000 and can go up to 252 miles (406 kilometers) per charge.
** The Energy Information Administration on Tuesday lowered its average global petroleum and liquid fuels consumption forecast for 2022 to 99.8 million barrels per day from the previous forecast of 100.6 million barrels a day. For 2023, it sees global consumption averaging 101.7 million barrels per day, down from the previous forecast of 102.6 million barrels a day.
** A Texas natural gas-fired power plant filed for bankruptcy on Monday to sell itself in court after it struggled to address more than a hundred lawsuits stemming from an extreme winter storm last year. Ector County Energy Center LLC, a 330-megawatt power plant in Ector County, Texas, is facing 113 lawsuits after winter storm Uri caused a massive blackout in the state in February 2021.
** Environmentalists urge federal wildlife officials to extend endangered species protections to a Nevada toad they say is threatened by a proposed lithium project.
World
** A move by the U.S. and its allies to release oil from their reserves should help counter the loss of Russia’s vast supplies after its invasion of Ukraine, and should help ease an energy crisis that has sent oil prices rising, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday.
** China’s top offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC Ltd. is preparing to exit its operations in Britain, Canada and the United States, because of concerns in Beijing the assets could become subject to Western sanctions, industry sources said.
