Energy crisis incoming?

This roundup of U.S. energy news headlines is part of our Canary Media Daily newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox each morning.

VENEZUELA

• Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum are reportedly planning meetings with oil executives to convince them to reenter Venezuelan oil fields. (Politico)

• Experts say it’ll be expensive and time-consuming to overhaul Venezuelan oilfields that have gone unmaintained for years. (Semafor)

• Analysts say there’s a guaranteed, albeit small, market for Venezuelan crude as the world approaches peak oil demand. (Grist)

POLITICS

• A bipartisan spending package introduced Monday largely preserves budgets for the U.S. EPA and the Interior Department. (Inside Climate News)

• Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) affirms permitting negotiations are on pause as long as the Trump administration halt on offshore wind construction continues. (E&E News)

NUCLEAR

• The U.S. Energy Department announces American Centrifuge Operating, General Matter, and Orano Federal Services will each receive $900 million to bolster domestic uranium enrichment. (The Hill)

• The Trump administration is pushing startups like Kairos Power to jump-start a nuclear renaissance with small modular reactor development, but high costs and construction delays mean their success is far from assured. (New York Times)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

• Tesla’s sales fell year-over-year in 2025, finishing at 1.64 million deliveries, putting the company’s sales total behind that of emerging Chinese company BYD. (AFP)

GRID

• PJM Interconnection says it’ll lower its power demand forecast as it awaits more information on how much electricity data centers will actually use. (E&E News)

FINANCE

• For the fourth year in a row, the world’s biggest banks made more money on their renewables investments in 2025 than they did working with fossil fuel companies. (Bloomberg)

ELECTRIFICATION

• The Trump administration sues two San Francisco Bay Area cities over their restrictions on gas infrastructure and appliances in new construction. (The Guardian)

A correction was made on Jan. 9, 2026: Tesla reported 1.64 million vehicle deliveries in 2025. This newsletter originally reported Tesla’s fourth-quarter deliveries of 418,227 as the total for the year.