** President Biden on Wednesday said he would welcome a potential Republican investigation into the federal government’s response to deadly wildfires in Maui after he laid out what his administration has done to help the island recover.
** Rivian, an electric vehicle manufacturer, is teaming up with renewable energy company BrightNight and environmental organization The Nature Conservancy to convert one of the biggest coal mines in the United States into a solar farm, according to Electrek.
** The Biden administration was hit with a federal lawsuit over its recent actions placing restrictions on offshore oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico. The American Petroleum Institute (API), State of Louisiana and Chevron filed the complaint late last week and moved for preliminary injunction in the case Tuesday.
** The Sierra Club has endorsed a Maine ballot initiative to create the country’s first consumer-owned electric utility, giving the issue national prominence ahead of the November vote.
** The nation’s top environmental official said he fully supports his agency’s decision to block a proposed gold and copper mine in Alaska’s salmon-rich Bristol Bay, even as the state of Alaska has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn that action.
World
** Six months after becoming the chief executive at Shell Plc, Wael Sawan quietly ended the world’s biggest corporate plan to develop carbon offsets, the environmental projects designed to counteract the warming effects of CO2 emissions.
** The EU wants to wean itself off Russian fossil fuels by 2027 and has cut its use of piped Russian gas dramatically. Even so, EU countries imported a record amount of Russian LNG this year, per Global Witness. EU countries are snapping up Russian LNG to replace piped natural gas from the country.
** Petrobras (PBR), Brazil’s state-owned oil and gas company, signed a strategic cooperation with China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) in order to expand the latter’s presence in Brazil’s deep-water pre-salt basins, per media reports.
** British and Dutch wholesale gas prices declined on Thursday morning on weak demand, high storage levels and as traders awaited news about strikes at Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities next week.
** Iran’s oil output and exports jumped in August despite U.S. sanctions, according to consultants and companies that track tanker shipments, as Tehran sells to buyers including China. Analysts said the higher exports appear to be the result of Iran’s success in evading U.S. sanctions and Washington’s discretion in enforcing them as the two countries seek better relations.
** Canada’s gusty Atlantic province of Newfoundland and Labrador selected four companies on Wednesday to develop wind farms to supply power for new hydrogen plants, conditional on further approvals.
** Iran is slowing the rate at which it’s stockpiling near weapons-grade uranium, the UN nuclear watchdog is expected conclude next month, adding to an easing of Persian Gulf tensions that’s already seen Tehran and Washington discuss the release of prisoners and more oil pour onto global markets.