2025-09-15 22:57

WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - California's top environmental regulator, who has helped lead the state's effort to ban the sale of gasoline-only vehicles starting in 2035, will retire on September 30 as the state spars with President Donald Trump over climate change rules. Governor Gavin Newsom said California Air Resources Board Chair Liane Randolph, a long-time environmental official, will be replaced by Lauren Sanchez, who is senior adviser to the governor for climate. Sign up here. The state's environmental plans have come under fire from President Donald Trump and California filed suit on a number of fronts over federal efforts to loosen climate change regulations. In June, he signed three resolutions approved by lawmakers barring California's electric vehicle sales mandates and diesel engine rules. Randolph oversaw adoption of a plan laying out California’s path to carbon neutrality by 2045, cutting air pollution and efforts to boost green vehicles. EVs now account for about a quarter of all of the state's new car sales. California's landmark plan to end the sale of gasoline-only vehicles by 2035 has been adopted by 11 other states that represent a third of the U.S. auto market. Trump has taken a series of steps to disincentivize EV sales and make it easier to sell gas-powered vehicles, including ending EV tax credits. In August, the Trump administration sued California to stop the Air Resources Board from enforcing stringent emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks that Trump recently declared void. The Environmental Protection Agency has also announced plans to rescind the long-standing finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health. Randolph said that puts "polluter fantasyland over proven science. Meanwhile, back on Earth, the planet continues to suffer the consequences of unchecked carbon pollution." Trump's Transportation Department has also canceled nearly $4.2 billion in grants for California's high-speed rail project, which is part of the state's emissions reduction plan, which California has challenged in court. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/californias-top-environmental-regulator-retire-amid-trump-battles-2025-09-15/

2025-09-15 22:57

HOUSTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. environmental regulator on Monday said it had issued an air permit for oil transportation and storage company Sentinel Midstream's proposed deepwater oil export project off the Texas coast. The Environmental Protection Agency issued the Clean Air Act permit that allows for the use of an offshore support vessel to control volatile organic compound emissions at the company's proposed Texas GulfLink deepwater port, according to a statement. Sign up here. WHY IT MATTERS U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing for faster approvals of projects that will help bolster the U.S. energy industry, including fossil fuel production, and this permit brings Sentinel one step closer to a final investment decision. CONTEXT This is the first U.S. use of this kind of technology alongside a very large crude oil carrier while it is being loaded, according to the EPA, which said similar technology has been used on shuttle tankers in the North Sea. The offshore project, expected to be situated about 30.5 miles off Freeport, Texas, aims to be able to fully load a supertanker with about 2 million barrels of oil per day. The project was issued a record of decision - a major step in the permitting process - in February and is awaiting a license to begin construction. Currently, only one U.S. port, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, can fully load supertankers. Other facilities can only load a supertanker partially due to draft restrictions, requiring them to use smaller ships to ferry crude to the larger vessel to fill it. KEY QUOTE "In issuing the first Clean Air Act deepwater port permit since President Trump returned to office, EPA is keeping its promise to unleash American energy dominance and economic prosperity," said EPA Regional Administrator Scott Mason. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/epa-issues-air-permit-sentinel-midstreams-proposed-deepwater-oil-export-project-2025-09-15/

2025-09-15 22:33

SANTIAGO, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Chile's state-run mining body ENAMI has received interest from 15 entities, including major miners and traders, to finance a $1.7 billion smelter modernization project, it said in a statement on Monday. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT ENAMI said interested entities include mining companies (Rio Tinto), commodities traders (Mercuria, Hartree Partners, Vitol, Javelin Global Commodities), investment funds (Orion Resource Partners) and banks (Sumitomo Mitsui Bank Limited, Macquarie Bank, Societe Generale). Sign up here. Japanese conglomerate Mitsui, Indian copper producer Indo Asia Copper and China Nonferrous Metal Industry’s Foreign Engineering and Construction also expressed interest, ENAMI said. KEY QUOTE "It has been very gratifying to see the market's interest in this mega-project ... it's a sign of investor confidence in the company," said ENAMI's head, Ivan Mlynarz, in a statement. CONTEXT ENAMI in August kicked off a process to seek investors for a smelter modernization in exchange for copper cathode supply. The Hernan Videla Lira smelter in the Atacama region is undergoing renovations that will give it the capacity to process 850,000 metric tons of copper concentrate a year and produce 240,000 tons of copper cathodes. WHAT'S NEXT Initial offers are due by the end of October, after which ENAMI will proceed to a binding offer stage, the company said. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chiles-enami-attracts-interest-miners-traders-smelter-financing-2025-09-15/

2025-09-15 22:15

CHICAGO, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Nebraska confirmed its first case of bird flu in a dairy cattle herd, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Monday, showing the virus continues to spread in livestock after an outbreak began last year. Dairy cattle in 17 states have been confirmed to be infected since the start of the outbreak in March 2024, though reports of cases generally have slowed since last year, according to the USDA. California, Michigan, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona and Texas also reported cases in herds this year. Sign up here. Infected cows often produce less milk, consume less feed and suffer other symptoms. Bird flu viruses circulating in dairy cows and birds pose a low risk to the general public, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Farm workers who come in contact with infected animals are more at risk. Since 2024, the virus has infected 70 people, mostly workers on dairy farms, according to the CDC. Pasteurized milk sold to consumers is safe because pasteurization has been shown to inactivate the virus, the USDA said in a statement. The herd in Nebraska is located in the central part of the state and has been quarantined, according to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture. The strain of the virus is similar to a strain from California, the top U.S. milk-producing state, which had a major outbreak last year and found more cases in 2025, the department said. Nebraska is a major producer of cattle raised for beef, though bird flu has not been confirmed in U.S. beef cattle. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/nebraska-confirms-first-case-bird-flu-dairy-cattle-herd-2025-09-15/

2025-09-15 22:07

Dangote achieves milestone with U.S. market-compliant gasoline Glencore sells second Dangote cargo to Shell, arriving September 19 Third Dangote cargo to the U.S. bought by Vitol NEW YORK, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Top global oil trader Vitol and North American fuel distributor Sunoco (SUN.N) , opens new tab took delivery of the first U.S. import of gasoline from Nigeria's new Dangote refinery on Monday, according to vessel-tracking data and two sources familiar with the matter. The delivery, on the tanker Gemini Pearl, marks a major milestone for the 650,000 barrel-per-day Dangote refinery, as energy market participants had been waiting to see when its production would start meeting strict U.S. motor fuels standards. Sign up here. Vitol purchased the Gemini Pearl's cargo of around 320,000 barrels of gasoline from Geneva, Switzerland-based Mocoh Oil, and sold most of it to Sunoco, according to one source and ship-tracking data. It was not immediately clear what volume Vitol sold to Sunoco and how much it will keep. The vessel discharged at Sunoco's Linden facility in the New York Harbor area, vessel-tracking data showed. The sources requested anonymity to discuss confidential details. Vitol and Sunoco did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reuters is the first to report the parties involved in these trades. Mocoh Oil, which earlier this year confirmed a partnership with Dangote to export products from the refinery, did not immediately comment outside of business hours in Switzerland. After a string of startup delays, the Dangote refinery, one of the world's biggest, has reshaped global energy flows by ramping up output sharply since last year. It is expected to significantly reduce Nigeria's fuel imports, while exporting its surplus mainly to Europe. A second cargo of gasoline from Dangote to the U.S. was sold by Glencore (GLEN.L) , opens new tab to Shell (SHEL.L) , opens new tab on the vessel MH Daisen, which is set to arrive in the New York Harbor area around September 19, one of the sources said and ship-tracking data showed. Glencore declined to comment, and Shell did not immediately respond. Vitol also purchased from Mocoh a third cargo of gasoline made by the Dangote refinery, with the vessel Seaexplorer set to deliver that in the New York Harbor area around September 22, the sources said. The sources said the destination of the undelivered cargoes could change based on market conditions. While the cargoes back expectations that the Dangote refinery is set to sharply alter global energy trade, they are likely to be the only ones for a while. The refinery's gasoline-producing unit could be shut for two to three months for repairs, industry monitor IIR Energy said earlier this month. Dangote did not respond to Reuters' earlier requests for comment on the outage. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/vitol-sunoco-take-first-gasoline-cargo-nigerias-dangote-us-sources-say-2025-09-15/

2025-09-15 22:01

Sept 15 (Reuters) - An outage affecting thousands of users of social media platform Reddit (RDDT.N) , opens new tab in the U.S. had eased after a brief downtime on Monday, according to tracking website Downdetector.com. There were nearly 650 incidents of people reporting issues with the platform as of 5.40 p.m. ET compared with over 21,000 reports earlier, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources. Sign up here. Reddit did not immediately respond to a request for comment. https://www.reuters.com/business/reddit-back-up-after-brief-outage-downdetector-shows-2025-09-15/