Republican holdouts on the House Budget Committee allowed their party’s massive budget bill to advance Sunday night after negotiating deeper cuts to the Inflation Reduction Act, but they continue to call for even more cuts to clean energy incentives. The bill had been blocked from passing Friday night by Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas; Ralph Norman, R-S.C.; Andrew Clyde, R-Ga.; and Josh Brecheen, R-Okla. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., also voted no; he said on X that he “fully support[s] the One Big Beautiful Bill” and his vote was “a procedural requirement to preserve the committee’s opportunity to reconsider the motion to advance OBBB.” Brecheen said in a Friday X post that he felt the House “cannot allow wind and solar tax credits, in current form, to continue in the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill.’ As it is currently written, Green New Scam subsidy phaseouts are delayed until 2029 — with some of these subsidies lasting until 2041!” After a weekend of negotiation, Republican lawmakers struck a deal for the bill to make deeper cuts to items including the IRA’s clean energy incentives, resulting in the legislation passing out of committee 17-16 late Sunday night. However, Roy said in a Sunday post on X that while the new bill “reduces the availability of future subsidies under the green new scam,” it “does not yet meet the moment — leaving almost half of the green new scam subsidies continuing.” The new shape of the bill is not fully known, but the legislation was advanced to the House Rules Committee, which will take it up early Wednesday morning. Breechen said after the Friday vote that he was grateful to President Trump “for leading the charge to end these Green New Scam giveaways” and thanked Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and House Budget Committee

Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré (Ret.) is a former commanding officer of the U.S. First Army. He is currently head of The Green Army, an organization dedicated to finding solutions to pollution. Just months after declaring a false “energy emergency,” the administration is moving to sell more American gas overseas, including to our competitors. It’s not only a disaster for the climate and our national security, but it will push American’s electricity bills through the roof. Energy prices are already skyrocketing. Electricity providers and their representatives are blaming regulators. Some elected officials, understandably under fire from their constituents, point the finger at greedy corporations. Meanwhile, apologists for fossil fuel companies are writing trendy think pieces putting the blame for high prices at the feet of green energy providers. The evidence for those claims are even thinner than the paper they’re printed on. There are plenty of factors at play that can explain rising energy costs. Some, like the huge demands placed on the grid by power thirsty data centers, crypto mining operations and AI are already widely known. But the role of LNG exports is not receiving nearly enough public scrutiny, especially since gas prices all but set electricity prices. While it’s been billed as “clean, American energy,” or “liquefied natural gas,” the product we’re talking about is a fossil fuel. It’s mostly methane, the greenhouse gas that traps 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than does carbon dioxide. Its liquefied form, which is pumped into massive supertanker ships and sold overseas, comes at an enormous cost, requiring massive outlays of energy to chill the fuel into a liquid form. It also harms our climate along every step of its journey as it leaks into the atmosphere from the well head, through the pipeline, to liquefaction, shipping and eventually

Dyce-headquartered Centurion Group has acquired Manchester-based Aerial Platforms Ltd (APL), a rental provider of powered access lifting equipment for working-at-height. Headquartered in Leigh, with additional hubs in Newcastle and Carlisle, APL is an owner managed business that delivers safety-driven scissor lifts, boom lifts and telehandlers across the construction, infrastructure and retail sectors. Through its new purchase, Centurion has gained three new operating locations in England and access to major industrial customers in the lifting equipment space. The company said that APL will benefit from its financial scale and additional backing to invest in new rental assets, infrastructure and capabilities – supporting accelerated growth across the UK. Centurion Group revealed this year that has prepared a $100-million (£81m) acquisition fund to help drive the next stage of its growth. Prior to its purchase of APL, Centurion had bought 20 businesses around the world since it was formed in 2017. The company has previously said that acquisitions are central to its strategy to grow its market share in renewables, minerals, infrastructure, environmental, defence and government. Former chief financial officer Euan Leask took over the company starting in February after Houston-based CEO Fernando Assing retired. Leask said APL “has a strong reputation across the UK in the powered access market, making it a great addition to our UK & Europe operations. “The acquisition not only expands our footprint across England, but also strengthens our position in the construction, infrastructure and retail markets, and grows the range of lifting services we can offer our customers.” Backed by private equity firm SCF Partners, Centurion has grown organically and by acquisition from around $200m in revenue when it was formed by the merger of SCF and ATR to approximately $500m at the end of 2024. Centurion added that it has an active pipeline of acquisition opportunities

Dive Brief: Maryland public electric utilities must disclose how they vote at PJM Interconnection stakeholder meetings under a law signed May 13 by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore. On or before February 1 each year, electric companies covered by the bill, or their local affiliates, must file a comprehensive report with the Maryland Public Service Commission that include both public and nonpublic votes on matters before PJM. The first filing deadline comes next year. Similar bills are under consideration in Delaware, Pennsylvania and Illinois, all of which are partially or wholly within PJM territory. PJM is responsible for North America’s largest transmission grid. Dive Insight: Maryland HB 121 passed both houses of the state legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support.  A similar transparency requirement appeared last year in broader utility legislation that would have required all Maryland utilities to seek PJM membership and refrain from ratebasing lobbying expenses.  The 2024 bill did not make it to Moore’s desk, but the prohibition on lobbying-expense ratebasing appeared in a comprehensive package this year that also requires separate rate structures for large-load customers, imposes new restrictions on gas infrastructure investments and authorizes solicitations for nearly 5 GW of dispatchable generation and energy storage resources. The 2025 bill now awaits the governor’s signature. HB 121 is a “common-sense bill” that prevents utilities from operating “in the dark” while “Maryland families struggle with soaring electric bills,” sponsor Lorig Charkoudian, a Democratic state lawmaker who represents parts of Maryland’s Washington, D.C. suburbs, said in a May 14 op-ed in the Baltimore Sun. “Until now, there was no requirement that utilities tell the public — or even state regulators — how they’re voting on transmission policies or market rules that can add hundreds of millions of dollars to our monthly bills,” Charkoudian said. A PJM representative indicated the new

South Bow Corp. has reported rising figures for the first quarter of 2025, including a record throughput. The company said in its quarterly report that its net income was $88 million, up from $55 million for the previous quarter, but well below the $112 million reported for the corresponding quarter a year prior. The company recorded normalized earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $266 million. A decline in demand for uncommitted capacity on South Bow’s pipeline systems led to an 8 percent reduction in normalized EBITDA compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. South Bow said its throughput in the first quarter reached 613,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) on the Keystone pipeline, with a System Operating Factor (SOF) of 98 percent, and approximately 726,000 bbl/d on the U.S. Gulf Coast segment of the Keystone pipeline system. In April, the company activated emergency response protocols due to an oil release at MP-171 of the Keystone pipeline near Fort Ransom, North Dakota. The company was able to restart the pipeline within days. South Bow’s Q1 revenue was $498 million, $10 million above that of the fourth quarter of 2024. However, the figure was below the $544 million reported for the corresponding quarter a year prior. In the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, pipeline capacity for crude oil remains greater than the supply, South Bow said. Looking ahead, the uncommitted capacity demand on South Bow’s Keystone Pipeline is anticipated to stay low in the short term. Moreover, swiftly evolving global trade policies and tariffs have created economic and geopolitical instability, resulting in considerable fluctuations in commodity prices and pricing differentials, the company said. To contact the author, email [email protected] WHAT DO YOU THINK? Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments

North America added five rigs week on week, according to Baker Hughes’ latest North America rotary rig count, which was released on May 16. Although the U.S. dropped a total of two rigs week on week, Canada added a total of seven rigs during the same period, taking the total North America rig count up to 697, comprising 576 rigs from the U.S. and 121 from Canada, the count outlined. Of the total U.S. rig count of 576, 563 rigs are categorized as land rigs, 11 are categorized as offshore rigs, and two are categorized as inland water rigs. The total U.S. rig count is made up of 473 oil rigs, 100 gas rigs, and three miscellaneous rigs, according to Baker Hughes’ count, which revealed that the U.S. total comprises 520 horizontal rigs, 41 directional rigs, and 15 vertical rigs. Week on week, the U.S. land and inland water rig counts each dropped by one, and the country’s offshore rig count remained unchanged, the count highlighted. The U.S. oil and gas rig counts each decreased by one week on week, and its miscellaneous rig count remained unchanged, the count showed. Baker Hughes revealed that the U.S. horizontal rig count dropped by two week on week, while its directional and vertical rig counts remained unchanged during the period. A major state variances subcategory included in the rig count showed that, week on week, New Mexico and Texas each dropped two rigs, and Wyoming and Ohio each added one rig. A major basin variances subcategory included in Baker Hughes’ rig count showed that, week on week, the Permian basin dropped three rigs and the Utica basin added one rig. Canada’s total rig count of 121 is made up of 74 oil rigs and 47 gas rigs, Baker Hughes pointed out. The country’s