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Barack Obama News

06 Oct 2023

U.S. Interior Secretary Deputy Beaudreau Bids Farewell

Tommy Beaudreau - Credit: DOI

U.S. Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beaudreau is stepping down from his role at the end of October, the Interior Department said in a statement on Wednesday, without giving a reason for his departure or saying how the vacancy would be filled.The Washington Post reported earlier Beaudreau was leaving after two years in the number two spot and a total of 10 years at the agency to spend more time with family.Earlier this year, Beaudreau signed the final approval for a scaled-back version of ConocoPhillips' (COP.N) $7 billion Willow project to drill for oil and gas in Alaska…

01 Jan 2023

US Judge Orders Norwegian Cruise Line to Pay $110 Million for Use of Cuba Port

© IanDewarPhotography / Adobe Stock

Norwegian Cruise Line must pay $110 million in damages for use of a port that Cuba's government confiscated in 1960, a U.S. judge ruled on Friday, a milestone for Cuban-Americans seeking compensation for Cold-War era asset seizures.The decision by U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami follows her March ruling that the use of the Havana Cruise Port Terminal constituted trafficking in confiscated property owned by the plaintiff, Delaware-registered Havana Docks Corp."Judgment is entered in favor of Plaintiff Havana Docks Corporation and against Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings…

04 Jul 2022

Five-year Plan: U.S. to Hold Between Zero and 11 Offshore Drilling Lease Sales

Credit:  flyingrussian/AdobeStock

President Joe Biden's administration on Friday unveiled a five-year proposal for offshore oil and gas development in areas of existing production, and said the final plan may have anywhere from zero to 11 lease sales.The range of options, between two auctions a year and none at all, sought to balance the administration's efforts to fight climate change with its calls to increase oil and gas supplies in the face of soaring fuel prices.The proposed plan includes no more than 10 possible sales in the Gulf of Mexico and one in the Cook Inlet off the coast of Alaska…

10 May 2022

US Importers Turn to Prayer and the President Ahead of West Coast Port Labor Talks

© Jezper / Adobe Stock

For more than two years, Isaac Larian has used every available tool to overcome global supply-chain bottlenecks and keep retailers stocked with enough Bratz and LOL Surprise! dolls to meet pandemic demand.Asked how he's preparing for this summer's West Coast port labor talks, the chief executive of Los Angeles-based MGA Entertainment deadpanned, "I'm praying two times a day."Larian and a half-dozen suppliers for major retailers like Walmart WMT.N, Amazon.com AMZN.O and Target…

15 Nov 2021

Biden Names Landrieu to Oversee Infrastructure Plan

File photo: Mitch Landrieu speaks as New Orleans Mayor in 2011. (Photo: Marine Forces Reserve)

President Joe Biden named former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to oversee implementation of the $1 trillion infrastructure plan, the White House said on Sunday.Landrieu, also a Democratic former Louisiana lieutenant governor, led New Orleans from 2010 to 2018. He played a key role in helping the city rebound from the devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005.Biden, who will sign the infrastructure bill into law on Monday, named Landrieu senior adviser responsible for coordinating implementation of the bill that includes big jumps in spending on roads…

18 Jun 2021

Biden May Hinder Oil and Gas Drilling Despite Court Loss

Credit; Lukasz Z/AdobeStock

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has the power to stymie oil and gas development on government-controlled lands and waters, industry and environmental experts said, even though a court decision ended his freeze on federal drilling auctions.Some options, they said, include offering sparse acreage or imposing more time-consuming permitting requirements."We lived through the Obama administration, and they did a lot of things to constrain leasing and other activity on federal lands…

03 May 2021

Australia Reviewing Lease of Darwin Port to Chinese Firm

(File photo: Landbridge Group)

Australia is reviewing the 99-year lease of a commercial and military port in the country's north to a Chinese firm, a government source said on Monday, a move that could further inflame tensions between Beijing and Canberra.Australia overhauled its foreign investment laws late last year, giving the government the retrospective power to impose new conditions or even force a divestment on deals that have already been approved.Defense officials are looking into whether the Landbridge Group…

14 Apr 2021

White House Names Beaudreau as Deputy Interior Secretary

Tommy Beaudreau (File photo: BOEM)

The White House on Wednesday nominated attorney Tommy Beaudreau, who oversaw energy development programs at the Interior department during the Obama administration, as the agency’s second in command.Beaudreau will return as deputy to Secretary Deb Haaland after serving nearly seven years there under former President Barack Obama, becoming the first person to lead the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees offshore oil and gas activity.He later served as chief of staff…

22 Feb 2021

U.S. Designates Already Sanctioned Russian Ship as Helping to Build Nord Stream 2 Pipeline

The Biden administration on Friday identified a Russian ship and a company it believes are helping to build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, but the entities had already been sanctioned by the Trump administration and the project's opponents in Congress said the move would do little to halt work on it.The State Department said in a report to Congress that the Russian ship, the Fortuna, and its owner, KVT-RUS, had been designated, a process that starts new sanctions, two lawmakers said.Both entities had been sanctioned by former President Donald Trump on his last full day in office last month for helping to build the natural gas pipeline to bring Russian gas to Europe via Germany."Simply put…

19 Feb 2021

U.S. to Unveil Nord Stream 2 Report. Sanctions May Take Time

Route map of Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines - Credit: Gazprom

The Biden administration is expected to name as early as Friday the companies it believes are helping build Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline, five sources said, a move that could eventually prompt sanctions on the nearly-completed project.The State Department report to Congress, which may come on Friday, is expected to list companies the administration believes are helping to complete the natural gas pipeline that Russia's state energy company Gazprom says is more than 90% complete.Sanctions law that went into effect on Jan.

27 Jan 2021

Biden Sees Nord Stream 2 Pipeline as 'Bad deal' for Europe

Joe Biden - Credit. Gage Skidmore/Flickr - CC BY-SA 2.0

President Joe Biden believes the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline is a "bad deal for Europe" and his administration will be reviewing restrictions on the project included in a bill that passed during the Trump administration, the White House said on Tuesday.The restrictions on the undersea pipeline project were included in the annual defense policy bill that passed on Jan. 1. Sanctions in the measure apply to any companies helping Gazprom, the Russian state energy company leading the project…

20 Jan 2021

Biden Announces Return to Global Climate Accord, New Curbs on US Oil Industry

Joe Biden - Image by Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced America's return to the international Paris Agreement to fight climate change, the centerpiece of a raft of day-one executive orders aimed at restoring U.S. leadership in combating global warming.The announcements also included a sweeping order to review all of former President Donald Trump's actions weakening climate change protections, the revocation of a vital permit for TC Energy's Keystone XL oil pipeline project from Canada…

14 Jan 2021

European Firms Facing U.S. Sanctions over Nord Stream 2 Pipeline

© Nord Stream 2 / Axel Schmidt

The U.S. State Department this month told European companies which it suspects are helping to build Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that they face the risk of sanctions as the outgoing Trump administration prepares a final round of punitive measures against the project, two sources said on Tuesday."We are trying to inform companies of the risk and urge them to pull out before it's too late," a U.S. government source said on condition of anonymity.The U.S. source said the State…

05 Jan 2021

Iran Denies Seized Korean Ship and Crew Are Being Held as Hostages

Iran denied on Tuesday it was using a South Korean ship and its crew as hostages, a day after it seized the tanker in the Gulf while pressing a demand for Seoul to release $7 billion in funds frozen under U.S. sanctions.The seizure of the MT Hankuk Chemi and its 20-member crew near the strategic Strait of Hormuz has been seen as an attempt by Tehran to assert its demands, just two weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office in the United States.Iran wants Biden to lift sanctions imposed by outgoing President Donald Trump. Tehran's critics have long accused it of capturing ships and foreign prisoners as a method of gaining leverage in negotiations."We've become used to such allegations," Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei told a news conference.

17 Dec 2020

US Blacklists Chinese, UAE Companies Over Sale of Iranian Petrochemicals

© BUSARA / Adobe Stock

The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on companies based in China and the United Arab Emirates, accusing them of supporting the sale of Iranian petrochemicals as Washington increases pressure on Tehran in the closing days of President Donald Trump's term.The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement it had blacklisted the four entities for facilitating the export of Iranian petrochemical products by Triliance Petrochemical Co. Ltd, which was hit with sanctions by…

16 Dec 2020

Biden Introduces Buttigieg as Transportation Secretary

Pete Buttigieg (Credit: Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0)

President-elect Joe Biden touted the diversity of his incoming administration as he introduced former rival Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday as his choice for U.S. transportation secretary.Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, would be the first openly gay Cabinet secretary confirmed by the Senate if he is approved.Appearing with Buttigieg in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden said the 38-year-old would confront the task of upgrading America’s aging infrastructure and restoring what he called “our crumbling roads…

09 Nov 2020

Biden Expected to Roll Back Trump's Offshore Energy Rollbacks

© Lukasz Z / Adobe Stock

Joe Biden could erase much of President Donald Trump’s four-year legacy of energy and climate deregulation with the stroke of his pen, according to regulatory experts, but replacing it with something new and durable may prove trickier.Trump’s rollbacks are on shaky ground because most were done not through Congressional lawmaking but via presidential executive orders that can be easily torn up by a new administration. That means signature measures ranging from the withdrawal of…

27 Oct 2020

US Issues Fresh Sanctions Targeting Iran's Oil Sector

© Vladimir / Adobe Stock

The United States on Monday imposed fresh Iran-related sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic's oil sector, including the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum, in Washington's latest move to increase pressure on Tehran.The U.S. Treasury Department in a statement said it was slapping sanctions on key actors in Iran's oil sector for supporting the Quds Force, the elite foreign paramilitary and espionage arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps."The regime in Iran uses the petroleum sector to fund the destabilizing activities of the IRGC-QF…

01 Sep 2020

US Preparing Tighter Oil Sanctions on Venezuela

© Andrea Izzotti / Adobe Stock

The Trump administration is looking to tighten oil sanctions on Venezuela in the near future, top U.S. envoy for the country told Reuters on Monday, by potentially removing exemptions that allow some oil companies to exchange Venezuelan crude for fuel from the OPEC member.U.S. President Donald Trump has ramped up sanctions on Venezuela's state-run PDVSA, its key foreign partners and customers since it first imposed measures against the company in early 2019, seeking to oust the…

19 Aug 2020

Subsea Mining: The Race is On, But Effects are Unclear

Manganese nodules on the Atlantic Ocean floor off the southeastern United States, discovered in 2019 during the Deep Sea Ventures pilot test. (Photo: NOAA)

Mining the ocean floor for submerged minerals is a little-known, experimental industry. But soon it will take place on the deep seabed, which belongs to everyone, according to international law.Seabed mining for valuable materials like copper, zinc and lithium already takes place within countries’ marine territories. As soon as 2025, larger projects could start in international waters – areas more than 200 nautical miles from shore, beyond national jurisdictions.We study ocean policy…

30 Aug 2019

UK highlights Gulf shipping threats

Trouble on the high seas: tensions grow over Gulf shipping security

(Photo: ©Carabay / Adobe Stock)

The UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is to call for more international support to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz when he meets his French and German counterparts later today (Friday, August 31) for talks about Iran. Last month, Iran seized a British-flagged oil tanker in the Strait in apparent retaliation for the UK’s seizure in Gibraltar of an Iranian ship accused of violating European sanctions by taking oil to Syria.The UK joined a U.S.-led mission to escort merchant vessels through the Strait of Hormuz at the start of this month but Germany and France declined to take part…

12 Aug 2019

Mitigating Maritime Risk

© Oleksii Fadieiev/Adobe Stock

“The First Steps in Mitigating Contemporary Risks to our Strategic Sea Lines of Communication”It is indisputable that the world’s economy floats on seawater. It is equally indisputable that international maritime transportation is the tool that keeps the global economy moving. The world economy has surged over the last half century, and that growth has been largely driven by globalization and the consequent reduction in barriers to trade. Any operational disruptions in maritime transportation have wider consequences for society…

06 Dec 2018

The Tipping Point: U.S. Exports more Oil than it Imports

© VanderWolf Images/Adobe Stock

The United States last week exported more crude oil and fuel than it imported for the first time on record, underscoring the nation's growing influence as a supplier of oil to the world.Exports of crude surged in the week to Nov. 30 to more than 3.2 million barrels per day, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Thursday.When adding in all imports and exports of crude and refined products, for the week the U.S. exported a net 211,000 bpd – the first time that has happened, according to U.S.