** The Senate has bucked Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) latest effort to get his energy deal with Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) attached to must-pass legislation. The chamber blocked Manchin’s permitting reform amendment from getting onto a defense funding bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act in an 47-47 vote. Sixty votes were needed to advance the measure.
** Consumer Reports recently extrapolated from its vast archive of owner surveys the reliability data pertaining to electric cars. It found that as a whole, EVs were less reliable than traditional gasoline and hybrid cars. The Kia EV6 ran away with top honors among battery electrics with a total score of 84.
** The Biden administration proposed to limit the speed of all motorboats over 35 feet from Florida to Massachusetts.
** As the Biden administration worked to prevent a catastrophic rail unions strike over the summer, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg went on vacation and phoned-in to negotiations from 3,500 miles away in Europe, Fox News has confirmed.
** California air regulators voted unanimously Thursday to approve an ambitious plan to drastically reduce reliance on fossil fuels by changing practices in the energy, transportation and agriculture sectors.
** The Democratic chairman and the top Republican on the House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee urged the Biden administration to take an active role in helping automakers deploy “connected vehicle” technology to avoid crashes.
** U.S. natural gas futures jumped about 8% to a two-week high on Thursday in a volatile week of trade on a bigger than expected storage draw, an increase in gas flows to liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants and a drop in output as extreme cold from North Dakota to Texas caused oil and gas wells to freeze.
** California will sharply reduce the incentive that encouraged more than a million homeowners and businesses to install rooftop solar panels and cemented the Golden State as a green energy pioneer. State regulators unanimously voted Thursday to cut the compensation homeowners get for their systems’ excess electricity by about 75%.
World
** European natural gas prices advanced on signs that another cold snap will hit the region before Christmas, while international competition for LNG starts to intensify.
** President Vladimir Putin has promised to refuse to sell Russian crude to countries that stick by the G7 price cap on its oil — but recent India-bound cargoes signal that vow may have been broken.
** There are tentative signs that oil tanker companies are avoiding sending their ships to collect crude from a key Russian port in Asia following G-7 sanctions targeting Moscow’s petroleum revenues.
** Coal use across the world is set to reach a new record this year amid persistently high demand for the heavily polluting fossil fuel, the International Energy Agency said Friday.
** Norway’s Hoegh LNG is in talks to supply more of its floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) to several European countries seeking alternatives to Russian gas, its CEO said.
** Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday inaugurated Germany’s first liquefied natural gas terminal, declaring that the speed with which it was put into service is a signal that Europe’s biggest economy will remain strong.
