Daily on Energy: Trump administration pursues new strategy to bring gas prices

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Monday, readers! We hope you had a lovely weekend and didn’t get caught in the rain that hit the D.C. region yesterday. If you’re in D.C., don’t forget your umbrella as you head out the door in the morning as the city could be in for a couple afternoon summer storms later in the week. ☔🌧️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. With gasoline prices rising again, the Trump administration has a new strategy to bring down prices at the pump ahead of the midterm elections: ramp up output at U.S. refineries. Energy Secretary Chris Wright teased the strategy this morning, telling reporters that while domestic refineries are running at record highs, the U.S. is still facing market pressures from the fact that similar facilities in the Middle East are experiencing severely reduced capacity. It was not immediately clear how the government intends to incentivize U.S. refineries to increase their output, as executives with oil majors such as Chevron and Exxon have warned that their facilities are already running at maximum capacity. At the start of the month, the Energy Information Administration reported that, overall, U.S. refineries were operating at 96.5% capacity. Pressure on prices: The constrained output has been a big reason why oil prices have remained elevated in recent weeks. The Trump administration has insisted that U.S. forces have been able to facilitate the transit of millions of barrels of oil out of the Strait of Hormuz and even claimed last week that exports out of the region hit pre-war levels. The number of refined products transiting through the strait, however, remains far below levels seen back in February. Plus, global markets are also feeling pressure from ongoing Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, which has caused even more petroleum products to be pulled from global trade. As of this afternoon, international and domestic oil prices remained in the mid-to-high $80s, with Brent crude rising by 1.21% to sell at $89.59 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate was also up 1.04% and selling at $83.26 a barrel. The higher oil prices have pushed gasoline above $4 a gallon once again, with the national average sitting at $4.06 a gallon today, according to AAA. A midterm strategy: Rising gas prices are expected to complicate Republican campaigns for the midterm elections, as many voters are likely to be quick to blame the sitting administration for the premiums. President Donald Trump has attempted to get ahead of growing concerns, telling voters in the last week that they need to accept the higher prices. During a political rally on Friday, Trump said paying a “tiny bit more for your gasoline” is worth ensuring that Iran could not have a nuclear weapon. “Remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, $4—it’s okay. I mean, it’s… I’ll never apologize, I did the right thing,” he said. If you’re wondering how much a “tiny bit” translates to overall, GasBuddy analyst Patrick DeHaan pointed out over the weekend that Americans are spending $338 million more on gasoline than they did one year ago. This is roughly equivalent to $2.35 billion more every week. TROPICAL STORM PLACES TENS OF THOUSANDS WITHOUT POWER IN HAWAII Hurricane Lala weakened into a tropical storm yesterday after passing Hawaii without making landfall. Still, the storm brought heavy downpours and strong winds, causing an estimated billions of dollars in damage and leaving thousands without power. Lala strengthened into a hurricane on Saturday, but the eye of the storm was about 30 miles away from the southern part of the Big Island. The storm still brought about 15-30 inches of rain to the Big Island. Yesterday morning, there were wind gusts as high as 140mph at the summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island, according to AccuWeather. There were gusts of wind up to 91 mph at Waimea on the Big Island and about 80 mph on Moloka’i. Lala’s damage: There have been reports of one death on the Big Island on Saturday in a storm-related car accident. The storm has also caused widespread outages in Hawaii. As of this afternoon, there are more than 100,000 homes and businesses without power in Hawaii. Honolulu has the most outages with 65,508 customers without power. Democrat Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said that there have been at least 100 homes that were lost on the Big Island, with some areas witnessing nearly 28 inches of rain. Green noted that he would ask for federal disaster resources to support the recovery efforts. Cost in damages: Experts at AccuWeather estimate that so far, there are probably $3 to $5 billion in damages due to persistent downfall, damaging winds, and disruptions to tourism.“Flooding, some of it severe, was the biggest impact from Lala, but widespread power outages, travel disruptions, damage to property and infrastructure, business interruptions and tourism losses all add to the economic toll,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter said. “The impact to the tourism industry could be prolonged by power outages, and damages to roads.”Porter said the impact of the storm appears far different than the 2023 Maui wildfires, which cost about $14 to $16 billion in damages. However, he added that the impacts of Lala will continue to have negative effects on tourism for the next few weeks into October. All the rest TRUMP ADMIN PAUSES BIG BEND CONSTRUCTION AMID BACKLASH: The Trump administration has caved to pressure from Republicans and Democrats over its border protection project in Big Bend National Park, which critics say has resulted in parts of the parks being torn up. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott said this afternoon that he paused all the construction activity within the park until he could do a personal evaluation of the situation. “We know the current and predictable national security threats and they are real,” Scott said. “Now over the next couple of days, I will join a small team to evaluate the terrain and listen to local leadership, community members and stakeholders to ensure that we secure our borders while simultaneously protecting [Big Bend National Park] for generations to come.”In case you forgot: Big Bend National park stretches across 800,000 acres in Texas, featuring stunning landscapes, canyons, desert mountains, and is home to hundreds of species of reptiles, mammals, birds and plants. Videos circulating on social media in recent days have shown bulldozers and other construction equipment clearing brush and trees in the park, sparking backlash from environmentalists, conservationists, and conservatives. Read more from Callie here. TEXAS DATA CENTER MORATORIUM WILL TAKE ‘SEVERAL MONTHS’: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s moratorium on new data centers is expected to leave developers waiting for months as they must undergo an audit before construction. The details: State regulators recently told the Texas Public Utility Commission that between 250 and 300 projects are set to move through its audit queue, most of which are data centers. ERCOT has said it will take “several months” to audit these projects before giving their approval for developers to connect the facilities to the state’s grid. The first batch of reviews is expected to be completed by April 2027. Read more from the Examiner’s Emily Hallas here. OPENAI SECURES LEASE FOR OHIO DATA CENTER: OpenAI has secured a lease in Ohio to build an 8-gigawatt data center, which would be the country’s largest artificial intelligence hub. For the project, OpenAI entered into a 20-year lease agreement with SB Energy and Softbank Group. Nvidia, the semiconductor producer, also agreed to provide a guarantee of up to $105 billion to help OpenAI lease the data center.OpenAI’s Ohio data center is expected to be the largest in the country. Currently, the largest operating data center in the U.S. is SpaceXAI’s Colossus 2 in Tennessee at 1.563 gigawatts.Read more about the project by Washington Examiner’s David Zimmermann here. U.S. OIL RESERVES DIP FURTHER: Emergency stockpiles of oil in the U.S. have hit record lows again, falling further below 300 million barrels. Data released this afternoon by the Energy Department show that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve held 293.4 million barrels of oil. This the lowest since early 1983, and is just 200,000 more than the amount recorded in December of 1982, when the reserves were first being filled. Last week’s drawdown is the latest in the Trump administration’s plan to release 172 million barrels from the inventories. If this entire amount is pulled, it could send the SPR to its lowest level since its creation, down to 243 million barrels.FERRARI’S FIRST-EVER ELECTRIC VEHICLE SELLS FOR $40 MILLION: A custom model of Ferrari’s first-ever fully electric vehicle sold for $40 million yesterday, surpassing the record for the most expensive new car ever sold in an auction. The Luce sold for 36 times its original estimate of $1.1 million, CNN reports. The winning bid for Ferrari’s Luce “Chassis 0” comes just months after its shares dropped more than 8% on the Milan Stock Exchanges after unveiling the car in May. The exterior shape of the car is more round and voluminous than a traditional Ferrari. Standard vehicle deliveries are set to begin at the end of the year through 2027. The vehicle is meant to appeal to customers who want to purchase a luxury vehicle with high-tech features. A LOOK AHEAD: Aug. 17 Energy Secretary Chris Wright is headlining The Great American Energy Comeback Tour in Midland, Texas. Aug. 18 – 20 the Texas Clean Energy Summit is taking place in Austin, Texas. Aug. 18 The Center for Strategic and International Studies is holding a webinar titled, “The Hormuz Implication for Energy Policymaking: Japan and South Korea.” Aug. 20 The Nuclear Regulator Commission is holding a virtual public meeting on its proposed rule that would reduce barriers for medical use licensing.Aug. 22 – Aug. 23 the Freedom 250 Grand Prix is taking place in Washington D.C. RUNDOWN Reuters Record-early champagne harvest highlights climate change impact on French vineyards404 Media We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training FacilityInside Climate News As Temperatures Get Hotter, Pesticides Are More Dangerous to Farmworkers