** President Biden unveiled his proposed budget for fiscal year 2024 on Thursday, which in part took aim at billions of dollars of tax subsidies the White House said benefit the fossil fuel industry. According to the White House, the proposed budget would strip $31 billion worth of “special tax treatment” for oil and gas company investments in addition to other fossil fuel tax preferences.
** The Biden administration quietly acknowledged in a court filing earlier this week that it won’t issue a final decision on future offshore oil and gas leasing until the end of 2023. Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys wrote in the briefing filed late Monday evening that the Interior Department (DOI) won’t be able to publish its highly-anticipated five-year offshore oil and gas leasing plan for at least another nine months.
** Microsoft founder Bill Gates criticizes the idea of leading ‘impoverished lifestyle’ to address climate change. Etimated to be the fourth-richest person on Earth, Gates says it was not realistic to expect that the climate crisis could be addressed by personal choices such as giving up eating meat.
** Since a fiery Ohio derailment on Feb. 3, trains have derailed in Florida, West Virginia, Michigan, Oklahoma and Nebraska. On Thursday a Norfolk Southern train derailed in Alabama, and another one hit a dump truck on Tuesday in Cleveland, killing a contractor.
** Ohio Sen. JD Vance is accusing the federal government and media Thursday of being slow to respond to the toxic train derailment in East Palestine because the people living there “have the wrong politics.” Vance made the remark on Capitol Hill as Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw is being grilled by lawmakers over his company’s handling of the Feb. 3 disaster near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.
** The amount of natural gas flowing to U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) company Freeport LNG’s export plant in Texas was on track to rise on Wednesday and Thursday following a drop on Tuesday after the plant exited an eight-month outage in February.
** Energy executives and Biden administration officials in Houston had a simple message for Europe and other regions griping that US climate spending will starve them of investment: Stop complaining and put up the cash to enact measures of your own.
** Qilak LNG plans to invest $5 billion in a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Alaska’s North Slope to compete with Russia’s Yamal project for Asian customers towards the end of this decade, its chief executive said.
** The House on Thursday voted to overturn the Biden administration’s protections for thousands of small streams, wetlands and other waterways, advancing long-held Republican arguments that the regulations are an environmental overreach and burden to business. The vote was 227-198 to overturn the rule.
World
** Australia’s natural gas industry should be permitted to follow the most promising returns on capital, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in his first defense of the industry since his government proposed tightening export rules.
** Denmark pushed the button Wednesday on an ambitious project that aims to bury vast amounts of planet-heating carbon dioxide gas beneath the North Sea floor, in the hope that it can help the Nordic nation and others meet climate targets.
** The North Sea’s biggest oil producer has warned it will be forced to cut staff and investment as it claimed its profits were all but wiped out Rishi Sunak’s windfall tax. Chief executive Linda Cook said the company was looking to grow the business outside of Britain where higher tax rates have “disproportionately impacted” UK-focused drillers.
** A growing number of energy exploration projects in the disputed waters of the South China Sea will increase the chances of confrontations, particularly with Chinese patrols, according to a new report by a US think tank.
** The European Union is trying to convince the United States to ease requirements that electric vehicles must be ‘Made in the USA’ to qualify for tax credits, even as the two sides near a deal on raw materials, a senior EU official said on Thursday.