** A Trump-era rule allowing railroads to haul highly flammable liquefied natural gas will now be formally put on hold to allow more time to study the safety concerns related to transporting that fuel and other substances like hydrogen that must be kept at extremely low temperatures when they are shipped, regulators announced.
** Colorado Gov. Jared Polis unveiled the first round of grant funding worth $24 million to help 13 school districts buy electric school buses, saying the state is helping to accelerate the transition away from fossil-based engines. “It doesn’t make sense for districts to buy new diesel buses knowing they would be stuck with them and their high costs,” Polis told The Denver Gazette.
** The Biden administration will put up to $12 billion into converting auto manufacturing facilities into plants for hybrid and electric vehicles, it announced this week. Automakers will be able to receive loans or grants to convert their factories into those that make plug-in electric, hybrid, or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters.
** President Biden is adding $4 billion to his appropriations request to Congress for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund, bringing the administration’s total proposal to $16 billion.
** A federal judge has found that a Trump-era rule change that allowed for the logging of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest violates several laws. U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Hallman found that the U.S. Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act and the Endangered Species Act.
** Orsted, the global wind energy developer, says its first offshore wind farm in New Jersey will be delayed until 2026 due to supply chain issues, higher interest rates, and a failure so far to garner enough tax credits from the federal government.
** Beginning next year, Texas eighth graders will learn about climate change because of a curriculum overhaul, but advocates are still arguing over which textbooks they’ll use.
World
** Planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions pose a direct threat to the survival of polar bears — by limiting their access to the sea ice that serves as their hunting grounds, a new study has found.
** Global wind turbine order intake reached new highs in 1H23, with 69.5 GW of activity, a 12% increase year-over-year, according to a new analysis from Wood Mackenzie.
** Since the discovery of 11 billion barrels of proven oil reserves offshore in 2015, Guyana’s oil industry has gone from strength to strength. And recent legislation passed by Guyana’s parliament is expected to encourage new production and ensure that the small country earns a significant share of its oil revenues in the coming decades.
** Washington has weighed into a dispute between Cyprus and international companies led by Chevron over how to develop a giant offshore gas field, backing the U.S. company’s plan to link it to neighbouring Egypt, two industry sources and a U.S. source said on Friday.
** Saudi Arabia’s crude exports fell sharply in August as the kingdom leads an effort by the OPEC+ alliance to curb production and bolster oil prices. Observed flows from the kingdom slumped to about 5.6 million barrels a day, the lowest since March 2021, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
