Governors' Wind Energy Coalition

“If people look at what this administration has done on climate and say ‘This is enough,’ this country is not going to get to our goals,” said John Larsen, a partner at Rhodium Group, a nonpartisan energy research firm whose analyses are regularly consulted by the White House. But talking about more regulations at the start of what promises to be a bruising election cycle is perilous, strategists said. In particular, the prospect of new mandates from Washington regarding steel and cement, the bedrock materials of American construction, could sour the swing-state union workers courted by Mr. Biden.

The state of California sued several of the world’s biggest oil companies on Friday, claiming their actions have caused tens of billions of dollars in damage and that they deceived the public by downplaying the risks posed by fossil fuels. The civil case, filed in superior court in San Francisco, is the latest and most significant lawsuit to target oil, gas and coal companies over their role in causing climate change. It seeks creation of an abatement fund to pay for the future damages caused by climate related disasters in the state.

A battle between Detroit carmakers and the United Auto Workers union, which escalated on Friday with targeted strikes in three locations, is unfolding amid a once-in-a-century technological upheaval that poses huge risks for both the companies and the union. The strike has come as the traditional automakers invest billions to develop electric vehicles while still making most of their money from gasoline-driven cars.

It’s a messy situation, and it threatens to undermine the future of offshore wind as a major and affordable source of electricity for the clean energy transition. But don’t panic just yet. Rather than saying that projects can’t happen, companies are saying they need to renegotiate agreements. The result is likely to be delays and an increase in costs for consumers, which is not ideal—but far from a catastrophe.

Exxon Mobil issued its first public statement that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change in 2006, following years of denial. In public forums, the company argued that the risk of serious impact on the environment justified global action.  Yet behind closed doors, Exxon took a very different tack: Its executives strategized over how to diminish concerns about warming temperatures, and they sought to muddle scientific findings that might hurt its oil-and-gas business, according to internal Exxon documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and interviews with former executives.

House Republicans canceled a vote Wednesday to begin debate on their fiscal 2024 Defense appropriations bill as conservatives remain dug in against voting for a stand-alone spending measure until they get assurances on a suite of other demands. It’s another sign that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy may soon have no other choice but to cave to the demands of his far-right flank or risk losing his speakership — all while the prospects of a government shutdown at the end of the month grow starker.

An imminent strike by the United Auto Workers against Detroit’s automakers could determine whether the electric vehicles that Americans buy in coming years will come from the traditional and homegrown auto industry or from the startups and foreign brands that seek to unseat them. The reason, analysts say, is that several outcomes — a strike or a deal for higher worker wages or both — could force America’s legacy carmakers into tough choices that other nonunionized auto producers don’t have to make. In other words, the UAW negotiations could sway which companies win or lose from a shift away from fossil fuels.

Rising diesel prices are inflating the bills Brett McMahon is getting from the companies that truck in the plywood, rebar and other supplies his concrete-contracting business needs. Asking his clients to renegotiate contracts to ease that pain, he said, has been “hit or miss.”  “In the private construction world, you’re not going to get a terribly sympathetic ear for that,” said McMahon, chief executive of Bethesda, Md.-based Miller & Long. “It’s, ‘Hey, you knew the risks when you signed the deal.’ ”

Romney said in 2019 that he was “looking at” signing on to a carbon tax bill, but he didn’t end up doing it. He and some other Republican senators in 2021 discussed the possibility of a carbon fee for imports but didn’t move forward. He participated in a series of closed-door Senate talks last year that aimed to come to a bipartisan agreement on an energy bill ahead of what became the Inflation Reduction Act. “If we want to do something serious about global emissions, we have to put a price on carbon,” he said at a hearing earlier this year in which he bemoaned the focus on domestic emissions and called for more action to reduce emissions in other countries such as China, Brazil and Indonesia.

The California Legislature this week passed a landmark bill that would require major companies to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, a move with national and global repercussions in governments’ efforts to fight climate change. If enacted, about 5,000 companies that do business in California would be compelled to report the amount of greenhouse gas pollution that is directly emitted by their operations, and also indirect emissions from things like employee travel, waste disposal and supply chains.