2025-08-26 21:57

August 26 - U.S. President Donald Trump has used his second term in the White House to stymie development of wind and solar energy facilities that were a cornerstone of former President Joe Biden's climate and energy agendas. Here is a timeline of actions his administration has taken to unravel federal support for clean energy projects: Sign up here. January 20 On his first day in office, Trump paused new leasing and permitting of wind energy projects on federal lands and waters pending a federal review. This marked a major shift in U.S. energy policy, which under Biden had been focused on decarbonizing the U.S. electricity grid by 2035. April 17 The Trump administration ordered construction to stop on Equinor's offshore wind project off the coast of New York, saying it had been approved without a thorough environmental analysis. A month later, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum allowed work to resume, in an apparent compromise with the state that would see cancelled plans for the Constitution natural gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to New York revived. May 14 The Interior Department said it would take steps to rescind a Biden-era rule that had lowered fees for solar and wind projects on federal lands, increasing costs for developers. July 4 Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a massive tax and spending package that ended subsidies for wind and solar energy projects years earlier than planned. Project developers, manufacturers and analysts predicted the legislation would slash installations of renewable energy over the next decade, kill investment and jobs in the clean energy manufacturing sector supporting them, and worsen a looming U.S. power supply crunch. July 17 The Interior Department announced new layers of review for solar and wind projects on federal lands, requiring sign-off from top officials. August 6 The Interior Department said it was canceling the Biden administration's approval of the 1,000-megawatt Lava Ridge wind project in Idaho, citing legal deficiencies and community opposition. August 7 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it would end a $7 billion grant program that sought to expand solar energy to low-income communities. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said that since passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), his agency no longer had the authority to administer the program. August 15 The Treasury Department unveiled rules that make it harder for wind and solar projects to claim the tax credits that are being phased out under the OBBBA. The changes are in response to an executive order Trump issued in July directing the agency to restrict tax credit eligibility. August 18 Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said her agency would no longer support wind and solar projects on productive farmland. A day later, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would heighten scrutiny of some solar and wind projects but stopped short of ending all agency support for clean energy projects on U.S. farms. August 21 The Commerce Department launched an investigation into imported wind turbine components, citing national security risks. About two-thirds of the value of a typical U.S. wind turbine is imported, according to energy research firm Wood Mackenzie. August 22 The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management ordered Danish company Orsted to stop work on a wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that is 80% built. BOEM cited unspecified national security concerns. August 25 The administration said it will move in the coming weeks to revoke approvals for US Wind's offshore wind project off the Maryland coast. The statement was made in a legal filing by the U.S. Department of Justice in a lawsuit challenging the government's permitting of the planned facility. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/timeline-trumps-moves-dismantle-us-wind-solar-energy-industries-2025-08-26/

2025-08-26 21:45

Aug 26 (Reuters) - Chrysler-parent Stellantis paid $190.6 million in penalties this year for not meeting U.S. fuel economy requirements, according to a government report and the Italian-U.S. automaker. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in an annual report that Stellantis paid $112.3 million in June and $78.3 million in March in payments for shortfalls from the 2019 and 2020 model years. In total, Stellantis has paid $773.5 million since 2018. Sign up here. Last month, NHTSA told automakers they face no fines for failures to meet fuel efficiency rules dating back to the 2022 model year under a law signed by President Donald Trump. Stellantis confirmed the figures to Reuters Tuesday but declined further comment. Trump's tax and budget bill ends penalties for not meeting Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules under a 1975 energy law. Rivian (RIVN.O) , opens new tab said in a court filing this month that because NHTSA has not processed end-of-year reports or compliance notifications for the 2022 model year and later, it cannot finalize previously negotiated transactions worth $100 million in credit revenue. The fuel economy penalty change is one of a number made by Washington to make it easier for automakers to build gasoline-powered vehicles. GM (GM.N) , opens new tab previously paid $128.2 million in penalties for 2016 and 2017. Last year, Tesla (TSLA.O) , opens new tab said it received $2.8 billion in global revenue from regulatory credits it earns from selling zero-emission EVs and sells to other automakers seeking to meet vehicle emissions targets. In June, NHTSA paved the way for looser U.S. fuel economy standards by declaring that former President Joe Biden's administration exceeded its authority by assuming high uptake of electric vehicles in calculating rules. In 2023, under Biden's administration, NHTSA said its fuel economy proposal would cost the industry $14 billion in projected fines including $6.5 billion for GM, $3 billion for Stellantis, and $1 billion for Ford (F.N) , opens new tab through 2032. The final rule adopted last year eased requirements and the agency said the industry would face no more than $1.83 billion in fines through 2031. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/stellantis-paid-1906-million-us-fuel-economy-penalties-this-year-agency-says-2025-08-26/

2025-08-26 21:21

By Promit Mukherjee OTTAWA, Aug 26 (Reuters) - The Bank of Canada will not review its inflation target when its monetary policy framework comes up for renewal next year, Governor Tiff Macklem said on Tuesday, saying the current target has helped anchor inflation expectations. Sign up here. The central bank and the finance ministry jointly review the target every five years and formally announce a decision, with the next review set for 2026. The BoC, as per its mandate, aims to keep inflation at 2%, the mid-point of its 1%-3% target range, and Macklem said while the bank was asking a number of questions before the review next year, the 2% target will not be considered. "The 2% target has proven its worth in achieving price stability over time," Macklem said in a speech at the Bank of Mexico in Mexico City. "We are already facing a more uncertain and unpredictable world. Now is not the time to question the target," he said. It is the first time that the Governor said the 2% target will remain unchanged when the monetary policy framework is renewed. He, however, said that ahead of the review the BoC is mulling over how the central bank should respond to supply shocks, especially at a time when the Canadian economy was reorienting its supply chain due to the economic uncertainty from U.S. tariffs. It is also looking at the best ways to measure core inflation in the face of supply shocks, and the interaction between monetary policy, housing affordability and inflation, while taking broad lessons from the pandemic. The BoC, which has been among the most aggressive of all major central banks to cut rates as inflation stays within its target range since last year, has held rates steady for its last three meetings at 2.75%. Macklem said in his speech that economic uncertainty stemming from the U.S. tariffs and shifts in supply chains were increasing uncertainty and could put more upward pressure on inflation. "Headwinds that limit supply could mean more upward pressure on inflation going forward. And more frequent supply shocks could mean more variability in inflation," he said, adding that while central banks cannot offset the impact of uncertainty, they could tailor decision making to withstand the blow. (([email protected] , opens new tab;)) Keywords: CANADA CENBANK/ https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/bank-canada-governor-says-bank-will-not-review-2-inflation-target-next-year-2025-08-26/

2025-08-26 21:03

ORLANDO, Florida, Aug 26 (Reuters) - TRADING DAY Making sense of the forces driving global markets Sign up here. By Jamie McGeever, Markets Columnist U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday as investors looked at President Donald Trump's controversial efforts to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook through the prism of possible interest rate cuts soon and parked to one side the longer-term erosion of confidence in the central bank and U.S. policymaking more broadly. More on that below. In my column today, I ask whether Nvidia's earnings on Wednesday will be strong enough to dispel concerns among some investors around when AI will deliver its promised returns, and keep the tech rally going. If you have more time to read, here are a few articles I recommend to help you make sense of what happened in markets today. Today's Key Market Moves Today's Talking Points: * Fed independence Trump's attempt to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook for alleged mortgage irregularities has cranked up his feud with the central bank to unprecedented levels. Cook insists she will not resign, her lawyer says she will sue Trump for trying to fire her, and the Fed says she will seek a court ruling to continue in her role. Traders are betting on a rate cut next month, and Treasury yield curves are steepening. This may offer some near-term support for equities. But beyond that, doubts over the credibility of Fed policy are bound to intensify, and that will surely come back to bite markets. * Long yields It's not just ultra-long U.S. Treasuries that are under heavy selling pressure. Longer-dated yields in Japan, Britain, and the euro zone are also rising as long-term debt sustainability across the industrialized world comes under the microscope. Britain's 30-year gilt yield surged on Tuesday to close near its highest level in 27 years, Japan's 10-year yield rose to a 17-year high, and the 30-year yield hugged Monday's record high of 3.2150%. * French politics France's minority government is teetering, with the three main opposition parties saying they will not back a confidence vote which Prime Minister Francois Bayrou announced for September 8 over his plans for sweeping budget cuts. The ripples are being felt across the euro zone, where equity and bond prices fell on Tuesday. Italy has long been viewed as the weak fiscal link among the big euro zone countries, but right now the spotlight is firmly on France. Can Nvidia results dispel creeping AI doubts? Questions are arising about when artificial intelligence will deliver its promised returns, meaning tech-concentrated U.S. equity indices sitting near record highs are vulnerable to a correction. Nvidia's quarterly results this week could therefore potentially be explosive – not just for the company's shares or the tech sector, but for all of Wall Street. The U.S. chipmaker and global AI leader is the world's most valuable company, with a market cap of $4.4 trillion. That's double the entire value of Germany's benchmark DAX and represents 8% of the S&P 500, the largest share for any single stock in the index's history. Nvidia is expected to report a 53% increase in revenue to $46.02 billion on Wednesday, according to the mean estimate from 40 analysts, based on LSEG data. That would be higher than the company's own guidance three months ago. Given Nvidia's unprecedented weight in the U.S. market, its earnings releases have become an event – almost akin to U.S. GDP or inflation statistics. But Wednesday's numbers will be scrutinized particularly closely given the questions being raised about whether we're seeing an AI bubble. 'OVEREXCITED' Doubt appears to be creeping in among investors about when and by how much - or even if - the eye-watering investment in AI projects and infrastructure will begin to pay off. And it's not just the bearish, contrarian, 'Magnificent Seven' short sellers peddling this narrative either. "Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes," said none other than ChatGPT founder Sam Altman earlier this month, according to The Verge. A recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology study found that 95% of companies are getting zero return on the billions of dollars they have plowed into Generative AI investments. More than 80% of companies have looked into or started using tools like ChatGPT and Copilot, but they only boost individual productivity, not firms' bottom line, the study found. Investors appear to be growing antsy, with some beginning to rotate out of expensive tech and growth stocks and into small caps and value names. In the last two weeks, the Invesco QQQ exchange-traded fund tracking the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 is down nearly 1%, while the iShares Russell 2000 ETF is up over 5%. That could just be a bit of mean reversion in thin August trading, but it's a nervy backdrop for Nvidia's earnings release. TRILLION DOLLAR BET One of the key worries being bandied about is the amount of money companies are investing in AI. The 'Magnificent Seven' U.S. tech giants have pledged hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming years on AI-related investment. Morgan Stanley analysts predict nearly $3 trillion of global spending on data centers through 2028, with over $900 billion anticipated in 2028 alone. To put that into perspective, capex spending among all S&P 500-listed companies last year was around $950 billion. Analysts at McKinsey go even further. They estimate that investment in data centers worldwide will need to reach $6.7 trillion by 2030 - covering hardware, processors, memory, storage, and energy - to keep up with demand. With sums like that, the hurdles to making an attractive return on investment are huge. But so are the potential rewards if they do. Morgan Stanley strategists estimate that the long-term 'economic value creation' for S&P 500 companies from AI could reach $920 billion a year. In theory, this could increase the S&P 500 market's value by $13 trillion, using a 10-year average multiple of 18.5 times future earnings, or up to $16 trillion, based on the current market multiple of around 22. HIGH EXPECTATIONS But that's way down the line. It takes years for new technologies to be fully adopted, and although markets are forward-looking, investors can grow impatient if promised returns fail to materialize. Especially when share prices have run up in the meantime. We may already be starting to see that in the recent tech pullback. In the four months up to the mid-August high, U.S. tech shares gained 53%, the strongest performance over a comparable period since March 2000, Truist Investment Advisory's co-CIO Keith Lerner recently noted. "The rubber band for tech stretched too far - at least in the short term. Tech became overcrowded and vulnerable to negative headlines," Lerner says. Given Nvidia's prominence, a release of bumper figures could calm AI jitters, but its failure to meet analysts' lofty expectations could cause the tech snap-back to become a whole lot sharper. What could move markets tomorrow? Want to receive Trading Day in your inbox every weekday morning? Sign up for my newsletter here. Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles , opens new tab, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias. https://www.reuters.com/business/global-markets-trading-day-graphic-2025-08-26/

2025-08-26 20:52

Human screwworm case is the only one this year, says USDA undersecretary USDA learned of the human case only in recent days, says official No timeline to reopen U.S.-Mexico border to cattle imports DECATUR, Illinois, Aug 26 (Reuters) - The human case of screwworm reported this week by U.S. health officials is the country's only one so far this year and poses no risk to the farm sector, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official said on Tuesday. Screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite that eats its hosts alive, has moved northward through Central America and southern Mexico, putting the U.S. cattle industryon high alert. Sign up here. A screwworm infestation can be fatal to livestock if untreated. An outbreak could cost the economy of Texas, the top cattle-producing state, nearly $2 billion, according to U.S. estimates. The human case in a person who had traveled from El Salvador to Maryland was confirmed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on August 4, but the agency did not publicly disclose it until Reuters exclusively reported on the case on August 24. The affected person fully recovered and there was no sign of spread to other people or animals, Maryland state health officials told Reuters. In the USDA's first remarks on the subject, Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden said on Tuesday at the Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois, that the agency had only recently learned of the case. "I don’t know the exact date that she learned about it, but we found out about it I think it was over the weekend," he said, referring to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. When asked why the case was not announced sooner, Vaden said he was not familiar with the CDC's notification process and added that the human case poses no risk to U.S. agriculture. Following Vaden's comments, the USDA released a statement late on Tuesday, saying the CDC has been leading the response to the human case. In support of that response, the USDA initiated targeted screwworm surveillance in a 20-mile (32 km) radius including parts of Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia, which had so far not detected the pest. The release did not clarify when the agency learned of the human case or initiated its surveillance. The USDA did not immediately respond to a request to clarify the sequence of events or whether Rollins has communicated with CDC about the case. The release also said the risk to U.S. public health from the human case is very low and that there have been previous travel-associated human cases of screwworm. The USDA has not detected screwworm in livestock or other animals since 2017, the release said. Conservation and cattle groups previously told Reuters that the CDC's delay in publicly reporting the case erodes trust between producers and government agencies. The USDA is investing $750 million to build a Texas facility that would produce and distribute sterile flies to mate with the wild screwworm population and drive down their numbers. Vaden said the plant will open in about 18 months. Rollins previously said it could take two to three years for such a facility to come online. Animal health experts have told Reuters that a number exponentially greater than the current supply of sterile flies would be needed to stop the spread of screwworm. The USDA has also been working closely with Mexican officials to combat the spread of the pest, though the U.S. decision to keep its border mostly closed to Mexican cattle imports since May has injected some fresh tension into the countries' ongoing trade deal negotiations. There is still no timeline to reopen the border, and the USDA is sending a team to Mexico in two weeks to verify that Mexico is following protocol to prevent screwworm's northern spread, Vaden said. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/human-screwworm-case-poses-no-risk-agriculture-says-usda-official-2025-08-26/

2025-08-26 20:45

Aug 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. Transportation Department said on Tuesday it will move Federal Aviation Administration headquarters staff in Washington out of the current building and consolidate agency IT and other systems, according to a memo seen by Reuters. The FAA headquarters staff will be moved into the building housing the U.S. Transportation Department headquarters in Washington. Sign up here. The department also said it will begin sunsetting legacy systems and embracing advanced technologies as it works to "streamline our processes, consolidate administrative functions, and modernize our infrastructure to better serve the American public." The FAA and USDOT did not immediately comment or answer how many employees would be impacted. The Trump administration has been moving to consolidate office space and shrink the size of the federal workforce. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told employees the initiative would be called 1DoT to "enhance the Department of Transportation’s efficiency, accountability, and operational excellence." Last month, USDOT told Congress it is losing just over 4,100 employees, dropping from nearly 57,000 to 52,862, with the FAA shedding 2,137 workers and falling from about 46,250 to 44,208. Duffy last month said it was uncertain if the department would conduct layoffs. "If we have bloat in certain areas we'll reduce force," Duffy said, adding the department would rehire back into some areas if needed. "We feel good where we're at right now, but we'll continue to assess where we're at with our staffing needs." https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-move-faa-headquarters-staff-consolidate-usdot-it-systems-2025-08-26/