More headlines of energy stories

** California Gov. Gavin Newsom says he’ll call a special session of the legislature to pass a new tax on oil company profits to punish them for what he class is “rank price gouging.”

** Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., has asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to launch hearings into the Biden administration’s request that Saudi Arabia delay a cut in oil production until after the midterm elections.

** The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Foreum says about 5.3 billion mobile devices worldwide are expected to fall out of use this year — and in most cases, experts believe they will end up in the garbage.  The number of smartphones, if stacked on top of each other, would climb  about 31,000 miles.

** The federal government is offering to pay Colorado River basin farmers to forego their water delivers, part of a $4 billion effort to tackle regional drought, KUNC reported.

** United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday called upon countries to invest in universal early warning systems, which he described as “proven life-savers” during extreme weather events.

** Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., called on the Biden administration  to cut off sales of U.S. antimissile systems to Saudi Arabia and provide them instead to Ukraine, Poland or other countries “that right now matter more to the United States than Saudi Arabia.” He made the call after OPEC+ cut oil production.

** President Joe Biden again criticized high US gasoline prices and said he’d announce new actions this week to combat what he described as a key driver of inflation.

** Two more labor unions have voted to approve new contracts with freight rail carriers over the past day, signaling progress as negotiators work to avoid a nationwide strike that could come as early as next month.

** Crude oil and natural gas production in the U.S. are headed for new records in 2022 and 2023 as the industry continues to show strength following the crash during the pandemic two years ago.

** Bank of America expects nonfarm payroll gains to be cut in half in Q4 of 2022 and turn negative in 2023. During the first quarter of 2023, the bank projects that the U.S. will be losing roughly 175,000 jobs a month.

** A shortage of a type of kerosene fuel hits Maine, where over 60% of the population relies on heating fuel to get through the winter.

World

** An explosion inside a coal mine in northern Turkey on Friday has trapped dozens of miners, officials said. At least 14 others were rescued or were able to exit the workings themselves.

** Higher oil prices could last well into next year, the watchdog International Energy Agency (IEA) warned in its monthly oil market report, and could be the last straw for a global economy that many have warned is already teetering on the edge of a downturn.

** Russian President Vladimir Putin has doubled down on his proposal to turn Turkey into a gas hub for Europe after deliveries to Germany through the Baltic Sea’s Nord Stream pipeline were halted.

** Russia said it had summoned diplomats from Germany, Denmark and Sweden to complain that representatives from Moscow and Gazprom had not been invited to join an investigation into ruptures of the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

** Germany met a crucial natural-gas storage target more than two weeks ahead of plan, but the regulator warned that wasn’t enough to guarantee supplies during the coldest months.

** Sony and Honda have announced (PDF) that they’re planning to start accepting pre-orders for their first electric vehicle model in the first half of 2025.