Daily on Energy: Republicans blame Canada for wildfire smoke

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Friday, readers! If you are in the D.C. area, we are dealing with some terrible air quality today due to the wildfires in Canada. 🇨🇦🔥 We hope you all take precautions and limit your outdoor activities. You can read more here about how you can stay safe from the unhealthy air. Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner energy and environment writers Callie Patteson (@CalliePatteson) and Maydeen Merino (@MaydeenMerino). Email cpatteson@washingtonexaminer dot com or mmerino@washingtonexaminer dot com for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.Republicans are accusing Canada of mismanaging its forests, making swaths of remote woodland more prone to wildfires, as much of the East Coast has fallen under unhealthy air quality warnings due to wildfire smoke traveling south from Ontario. Pushback in Congress: Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno is introducing a bill to punish Canada economically for forest management inaction, imposing sanctions against the country over wildfire smoke. The bill would require the president to determine if Canadian wildfires harmed U.S. air quality and if the Canadian government failed to take action preventing, mitigating, or containing such events. It would also require the president to impose sanctions against various Canadian officials, including those working in land management, wildfire prevention, and emergency management. It would then revoke visas for individuals sanctioned under the bill. Further north, four Republican lawmakers from Michigan sent a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney asking for the Canadian government to take stronger measures to mitigate wildfires through forest thinning, fire fuel reduction, and prescribed burns. How to prevent wildfires: Climate change has been long considered a key driver of increased risk of wildfires, with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration pointing out that extended drought periods, increased heat, and lower snowpacks can generate a thirsty atmosphere, which pulls on moisture from trees, shrubs, grasses, and other vegetation, making forests more prone to flammability. Tackling climate change is not the only way to mitigate wildfires, though, as countries heavily rely on forest management to prevent fires. This includes controlled fires to reduce the amount of flammable “fuel” on the forest floor, as well as traditional forest thinning. Some environmentalists have criticized this method of management, claiming that it favors logging industries and leads to forest degradation and deforestation. More than 911 million acres of Canada is forest. Much of this is located in remote and hard-to-access areas, making it near impossible to manage every single wildfire, some experts say. There are several conservationists, though, who say Canada has the room to increase mitigation. “Fire is a natural part of forest ecosystems and the reason we manage forests is to mitigate harm to human life and communities,” Danielle Franz, CEO of the American Conservation Coalition, told Daily on Energy. “Canada does prescribed burns at a tiny fraction of the scale it should. Their forests are genuinely too vast to manicure end-to-end, but they’ve repeatedly under-invested in the manageable areas that actually matter.” MORE STATES SIGN ONTO THE WHITE HOUSE RATEPAYER PROTECTION PLEDGE: At least 23 states have signed on to the White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge, a source familiar with the plan told Maydeen. It was reported earlier this week that the White House plans to expand its voluntary pledge to utility companies, developers of data centers, and governors. A White House official told Daily on Energy that, “There is nothing to announce at this time, but President Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge has been so impactful that additional stakeholders also want to sign it.”The Wyoming governor’s office confirmed with Maydeen that Republican Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has signed on to the pledge. Republican Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte announced last week that he has signed on to the initiative. It was reported that Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed on as well. A source with knowledge of the White House signing event said it could happen in the coming weeks.It was reported that utility companies such as Duke Energy, Southern Co., and Exelon are expected to sign onto the pledge. The White House first announced the pledge in March, with several Big Tech companies signing on and vowing to finance new power generation for data center projects. The expansion of the pledge comes as the House Energy and Commerce Committee plans to markup the Ratepayer Protection Act in a two-day hearing starting on Monday and Tuesday. The bill would require state regulators to create standards for large-load customers to cover the costs related to new generation, transmission lines, and other upgrades. QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Energy Secretary Chris Wright criticized Democrat New York Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this week for signing a moratorium on data centers. “Unfortunately, Governor Hochul has it exactly backwards,” Wright told Fox News this week. “Data centers are the greatest tool we have right now to stop the rise of electricity prices and ultimately to bring them back down,” Wright said. “It’s the Democrat green energy policies that have driven energy prices up in New York State and actually shrunk their total electricity production.” ALL THE REST: OIL PRICES JUMP: International and domestic oil prices ticked up today after remaining relatively stable throughout the week, as tensions escalated in the Middle East overnight. Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy revealed on Friday that one of its power generation and water distillation plants was attacked by Iran, according to the Kuwait Times. Iran claimed attacks in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Syria, while the U.S. said it conducted its sixth consecutive night of strikes against Iran. Analysts have warned that the renewed fighting will create higher margins for refined products, causing gasoline and diesel prices at the pump to rise even further. As of today, AAA was reporting a national average price of gasoline just under $4 a gallon, at $3.98. Diesel is already back above $5, averaging at $5.058 a gallon. Just before 3 p.m. EDT this afternoon, Brent crude had risen 4.62% and was selling at $88.12 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate was also up 4.52% and priced at $82.52 a barrel. ‘DRILL, BABY, DRILL’ UPDATE: With prices elevated, the number of active rigs in the U.S. continues to tick up. Baker Hughes released data this afternoon showing that the number of oil and gas drilling rigs in the U.S. increased by seven this past week, to a total of 588. This is roughly 44 more active rigs than this time last year. Broken down, Baker Hughes found that the number of gas rigs remained unchanged at 126, while the number of oil rigs increased by seven. In total, the oil field services company reported that the number of inland water rigs increased by one, the number of land-based rigs grew by seven, and the number of offshore rigs dropped by one.Worth pointing out: This recent increase comes the same week that the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas released an article claiming that the domestic rig count is no longer a “reliable bellwether for risk in oil and gas services lending.” The Dallas Fed analysts pointed out that, while the rig count will always be important for the industry, it no longer tells the full story as upstream spending has remained fairly subdued over the last five years while production is increasing and oil and gas service companies are reporting stable cash flows. Some of this can be attributed to technology upgrades, expanding in alternative energy generation or geography, or even branching into AI. You can read their full analysis here. TEXAS FLASH FLOODS: Flash floods have hit southern Texas, killing at least two people and necessitating hundreds of rescues, CNN reports. There have been more than 230 rescues as of Thursday afternoon, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said. About a year’s worth of rain has fallen in parts of Southern Texas this week. The threat of significant rainfall has ended, but there could be isolated showers. Flash floods threatened areas farther west today, from San Angelo and Junction to El Paso. This morning, storms prompted flood emergencies for parts of north-central Sutton County and east-central Crockett County, Texas. USTR VISITS IONIC MINERAL TECHNOLOGIES: U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is in Utah visiting a mining company, Ionic Mineral Technologies, that late last year uncovered what may be the nation’s largest reserve of critical minerals. In December, Ionic MT discovered high-grade deposits of 16 different minerals, including lithium, alumina, germanium, rubidium, cesium, vanadium, niobium, and several rare earths.Republican Reps. Blake Moore and Mike Kennedy of Utah were also in attendance at the visit, along with Republican Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams. Why it matters: The visit comes at a time when the Trump administration has made deals with a number of critical mineral and rare earth companies to help boost and diversify the supply chain. The mining company’s CEO and founder, Andre Zeitoun, told Maydeen in January that it has hired Citigroup to process strategic partnerships, for the government or third party refiners. The company earlier this week announced that its project is estimated to be worth $12.1 billion. ICYMI – TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SETS LEASE SALE FOR DEEP-SEA MINING: The Interior Department has proposed leasing more than 31 million acres off the coast of American Samoa for mining deep-sea minerals located on the sea floor. The agency’s Marine Mineral Administration said yesterday that it plans to lease two blocks – one stretching 16.3 million acres and the other 15.1 million acres – off the coast of the island Tau. The auction for the federal water leases will take place on Nov. 19, with minimum bids starting at $3 million. Successful bidders will have royalty rates of 2% of the value of mineral production during the first five years of mining, with rates increasing to 5% after that period. Why this matters: Deep-sea mining targets hundreds of billions of potato-shaped rocks known as polymetallic nodules that contain critical minerals and rare earths. These are crucial for industries, including defense, aerospace, energy, and general manufacturing. Just one of these rocks can contain a number of these critical minerals, such as nickel, copper, manganese, and cobalt. Deep-sea mining has become increasingly attractive for the Trump administration to reduce reliance on China for the critical mineral supply chain. RUNDOWN Washington Post 5 tips to keep your pets safe from wildfire smokeLatitude Media The off-grid data center fantasyInside Climate News After Months of Debate, Virginia Fails to Pass Data Center Clean Energy RequirementsCBS News Mississippi homeowners blame a noisy data center plant for sleepless nights. The mayor’s advice? “Consider selling.”