Government & Regulatory

Steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs will spend $1 billion to modernize the blast furnace at its Middletown, OH, facility, a total that includes a $500 million Department of Energy (DOE) grant originally intended to support a hydrogen-focused decarbonization project, the company said August 21. The revised project will reline and upgrade the blast furnace while installing a cogeneration plant for the Middletown site. 

On Monday August 10, the Trump Administration extended its temporary Jones Act waiver for an additional 90 days, keeping the exemption in place through mid-November as the war with Iran continues to disrupt global crude and refined-product flows and elevate U.S. energy costs.

The Department of Energy terminated funding for California’s hydrogen hub and more than 280 other clean-energy projects approved during the Biden administration for political reasons, the agency conceded this month in response to a lawsuit over the cuts, as first reported by New York Times.

Energy market executives expect traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to eventually normalize, although most believe it will take time, according to an update to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ quarterly survey published April 23. Of the executives surveyed, 20% expect traffic through the strait to return to normal levels during May, 39% expect recovery by August, 26% by November and 14% later than that.

Federal funding for five of the seven regional hydrogen hubs and other energy-related projects that had been in line for termination could instead be preserved following a review by the Trump administration, according to Bloomberg, which cited a 39-page list of about 2,000 projects the Department of Energy said it plans to “retain or modify.”

A legislative push to rein in carbon capture and sequestration development in Louisiana hit a major roadblock this week when a House committee rejected the proposed Louisiana Landowners’ Protection Act, a bill that would have barred companies from using eminent domain to secure land for carbon dioxide pipelines and storage.

The continuing U.S. and Israeli war against Iran and the rapid expansion of data centers and AI dominated the conversation at this year’s CERAWeek energy conference in Houston, which gathers more than 10,000 attendees from more than 80 countries.