If only California would get out of its own way

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DAILY ENERGY NEWS | 07/08/2025

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Is California's reckoning finally upon us?

Politico (7/7/25) reports: "Donald Trump is coming for California’s signature climate policies — and so is California. Stung by the party’s sweeping losses in November and desperate to win back working-class voters, the Democratic Party is in retreat on climate change. Nowhere is that retrenchment more jarring than in the nation’s most populous state, a longtime bastion of progressive politics on the environment. 'For a lot of Democrats, the 2024 election was a reality check about the importance of cost-of-living issues and affordability for Californians,' said Mark Baldassare, survey director at the Public Policy Institute of California. 'That’s given policymakers some pause about what is actually workable in terms of environmental policy.' Other parts of the country are pulling back on climate policies in the name of affordability, too. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is delaying plans for a carbon-trading system and slowing enforcement of the state’s rules for clean cars and trucks, which follow California’s. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is similarly pausing on carbon trading. And in Congress, some 36 Democrats — including two from California — signed on to the effort to overturn California’s vehicle rules."

"America’s reindustrialization and the AI race will require a significantly larger supply of around-the-clock, reliable, and uninterrupted power. President Trump is committed to advancing a strategy of energy addition. We must unleash American energy!"

– Energy Secretary Chris Wright

All the more reason to unleash America's full energy potential.

RTT News (7/8/25) reports: "The Department of Energy has warned that blackouts could increase by 100 times in 2030 if the U.S. continues to shutter reliable power sources and fails to add additional firm capacity. The analysis reveals that existing generation retirements and delays in adding new firm capacity, driven by the radical green agenda of past administrations, will lead to a surge in power outages and a growing mismatch between electricity demand and supply, particularly from artificial intelligence-driven data center growth, threatening America's energy security. DOE's analysis shows that if current retirement schedules and incremental additions remain unchanged, most regions will face unacceptable reliability risks within five years and the Nation's electrical power grid will be unable to meet expected demand for AI, data centers, manufacturing and industrialization while keeping the cost of living low for all Americans. Staying on the present course would undermine U.S. economic growth, national security, and leadership in emerging technologies."

Watch out, OPEC, the West is coming.

Wall Street Journal (7/7/25) reports: "Brazil, Guyana and Argentina are forecast to drive more than 80% of growth in global oil production outside the OPEC bloc over the next five years, offsetting losses where top producers are mired in conflict. South American oil barrels are less expensive to produce and generate lower emissions than the global average. Oil from Brazil typically contains fewer contaminants, and the country’s plentiful wells mean less infrastructure is needed to produce the same amount of oil, experts say. South America’s oil boom marks a stark turnaround from the past decade. Oil production from Venezuela, which has the world’s largest oil reserves, collapsed in 2017 when authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro tightened control of the industry. Bolivian oil production went into sharp decline in 2015, after government seizures of foreign oil assets in the previous decade scared off investment."