The Department of Agriculture and the FDA reached a "formal agreement" on Thursday to regulate cell-cultured meat grown in lab settings, the AP reports.
Why it matters: If cell-cultured meat companies want to use their products to eliminate animal cruelty in factories, feed a growing population and combat climate change — as they keep claiming it can — they need consumers to be able to trust their food, which can only happen if it's regulated like any other food product.
There wasn't a single question about global warming in the 2016 presidential debates. In 2020, it might be the dominant one.
The big picture: Climate change is on everyone's minds in a way that it wasn't in 2016. The worst thing to be as a Democratic presidential candidate, according to some youth environmental activists, is a "climate delayer" — someone who doesn't recognize the urgency in addressing climate change.
Rising U.S. exports of crude oil and petroleum products (like gasoline) combined are poised to overtake Saudi Arabia's by the end of the year, Rystad Energy predicts in a new analysis.
Why it matters: It's a testament to how the U.S. oil boom is increasingly affecting global trade. And it's just symbolically interesting.
Norway's finance ministry proposed Friday that the country's huge sovereign wealth fund should drop holdings in oil exploration and production companies in order to "reduce the aggregate oil price risk in the Norwegian economy."
Why it matters: It's the biggest sovereign wealth fund in the world, and, as the Financial Times points out, "the move is likely to be seized upon by environmentalists as a template for other big global investors and marks the biggest proposed divestment of fossil fuel assets."
A first-ever address by a sitting secretary of state and the economic crisis in oil-rich Venezuela are set to drive the agenda at a conference next week in Houston of the world’s biggest energy companies.
The big picture: This is the first time the conference, held for almost 40 years, is occurring with America as the world’s biggest crude oil producer, a milestone reached last year.
Daniel Yergin, host of the conference dubbed CERAWeek, calls the U.S. boom, driven by surging production from shale formations, an “earthquake” in the world oil market.
