Record-High Diesel Prices Are Becoming a Political Emergency for Trump

Current conditions: Rains from Typhoon Dujuan caused landslides that killed four people in regions near Tokyo, while six are still missing • More than 20 active fires, including one threatening the popular tourist town Villa de Leyva, have led Colombian authorities to declare a public calamity • It’s cool and damp in New York City, where United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is preparing to open his final session of high-level debate at the United Nations General Assembly.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Trump pressured on high diesel prices

Less than two weeks ago, my colleague Alexander C. Kaufman told you about the average U.S. diesel price breaking $6 per gallon for the first time ever. Oh, how young we were then. As of Tuesday, the average diesel price was nearly $6.53, more than a cent higher than Monday and nearly a dollar higher than the price of a month ago. As Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin wrote when the average diesel price was just $5.50 per gallon, “While there’s probably never a good time for fuel prices to spike, the increase in diesel prices right now will likely translate to increased costs for farmers as they rev up their equipment for the harvest season.” Indeed, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, took to X over the weekend to say that fuel costs are “KILLING FARMERS INCOME” and call for an embargo on diesel exports. It seems Trump was listening: According to Politico, the president called up Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins Monday to discuss the issue. Though Rollins said to expect news “very soon on some potential actions,” an export ban doesn’t seem likely to be among them. A White House official told Politico that the administration is “not considering an export ban or export restrictions at this time.”

Meanwhile, the president is considering standing up a $5 billion fund to help rebuild Middle East energy infrastructure damaged in the war with Iran. As outlined in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, the plan would call for soliciting matching funds from partners Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, and Jordan, with the goal of raising $10 billion in total. Reactions from analysts were mixed. “This strategy has risk written all over it,” Bilal Saab, senior managing director of consulting firm TRENDS US, told the paper. Eurasia Group energy senior analyst Gregory Brew, however, called the plan a “great idea” and pointed back to his own essay from Foreign Affairs in May advocating for “strategies that build energy resilience and reduce exposure to future strait closures.”

2. Department of Energy to fund nearly $100 million of geothermal research

The Department of Energy announced on Monday that it has selected 21 next-generation geothermal projects to receive a total of $99 million in funding with the aim to “advance geothermal development” across the U.S. Five of the projects will conduct field research on enhanced geothermal technologies, while the remaining 16 will conduct exploratory drilling to identify potential new well sites. The recipients include industry darlings such as Fervo Energy, Zanskar Geothermal and Minerals, and Quaise Energy. The data from these projects will be made public via the DOE’s Geothermal Data Repository, allowing companies and developers outside this select group to benefit from the research.

“These projects will empower American innovators to unlock the tremendous geothermal resources beneath our feet,” DOE Under Secretary of Energy Kyle Haustveit said in a statement. “Under President Trump’s leadership, we’re advancing next-generation geothermal technologies that can lower costs, strengthen American energy dominance, and turn more of our vast domestic geothermal resources into reliable and affordable power.”

3. EPA can’t cancel Solar for All, judge rules

Last Friday afternoon, Judge Mary McElroy of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island ruled that attempts by Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency to claw back $7 billion in funding distributed under the Biden-era Solar for All program were illegal. The ruling hinged on the wording of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, in which Congress rescinded “unobligated” funds from the program. The EPA seized on this authority to attempt to cancel the program entirely, cutting off access to funds that had been obligated but not yet distributed. “The OBBBA did not convert SFA funding into a lump-sum amount subject to EPA’s discretion,” McElroy wrote in her decision, according to The Hill. “Instead, Congress’s clear intent was that EPA continue to administer the already obligated SFA grants.”

This represents the second defeat in a row for EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in August upheld an injunction against his attempt to rescind $20 billion in awards from a related program, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. My colleague Robinson Meyer wrote at the time that the decisions “would amount to a victory — if it holds.” Though the judge’s opinion required the agency to give grant recipients access to their funds while the case proceeded, the EPA later made a deal to keep the funds frozen while it prepares an appeal to the Supreme Court. An EPA spokesperson told The Hill on Friday that it is already “reviewing the decision and considering options for appeal” in the Solar for All case.

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4. Data center skepticism hits the markets

A protest against data center development outside the Austin Marriott in Texas in early September. Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images

SB Energy, the SoftBank subsidiary backing some of the biggest projects of the data center boom — including a planned 9.2-gigawatt natural gas-fired power plant in Ohio — was all set to go public as soon as this month. Now, however, The New York Times is reporting that those plans have been delayed as mounting public distrust in artificial intelligence and its associated infrastructure has led to skepticism among investors. Heatmap has tracked the backlash closely, including in our exclusive polling showing that 75% of Americans now oppose data center construction near them.

The backlash is also causing political problems for data centers, especially in Texas, where Governor Greg Abbott has issued another salvo against developers. After freezing new data center grid connections last month, Abbott on Monday ordered the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state’s environmental regulator, to stop issuing permits for new data center construction. “Simply put, Texans must come first," Abbott said in a statement. “Data centers must pay their own way, protect our grid and water,” and complete audits with the state’s grid and water authorities. “Until they do, TCEQ will issue no permits sought by data center projects.”

5. This El Niño is already record-breaking

The surface temperature in a key section of the Pacific Ocean registered 3.07 degrees Celsius higher than average over the weekend, putting it in a statistical tie with the previous record set in 2015, according to an analysis in Carbon Brief Monday. This particular section of the Pacific is the one scientists monitor to determine the presence of the cyclical El Niño weather pattern, which occurs when average temperatures breach half a degree Celsius above average for the region. Two degrees higher and it’s a Super El Niño. “This is going to be so far beyond a Super El Niño, if the models are right, that we sort of need a new term for it,” the author of the analysis, Zeke Hausfather, told Rob in August on an episode of Shift Key. El Niño temperatures typically peak in November or December, meaning that there are likely several months of intensification still to come. California Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday declared a state of emergency to boost preparedness against the storms and flooding the intense weather pattern is likely to bring to the state.

THE KICKER

As my colleague Emily Pontecorvo wrote in her dispatch from Day 1 of New York Climate Week yesterday, the carbon dioxide removal industry has money problems. That makes the $35 million debt financing deal between Italian lender Mediobanca and American carbon removal company Vaulted Deep announced Monday that much more exciting. Vaulted Deep has a unique approach to sequestering carbon, processing organic materials into a slurry that it then injects underground, and has previously received support from the carbon removal backer Frontier Climate. The funding arrangement, announced Monday, is a proof of concept of the advanced market commitment model Vaulted Deep co-founder and CEO Julia Reichelstein told Axios.