Biden mulls fuel-export limits

President Joe Biden is considering requiring oil companies to store more fuel inside the U.S. as dwindling diesel stockpiles in the Northeast stoke concerns about price spikes this winter, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Tuesday.

While the U.S. remains a major exporter of diesel to European allies facing an energy crunch, “we also want to make sure there’s enough fuel in the United States,” Granholm told Bloomberg News in an interview at the COP27 climate conference in Egypt.

Granholm’s statement marks the most explicit confirmation yet that the president is considering mandatory stockpile requirements in response to perilously low fuel inventories.

U.S. East Coast distillates inventories, which include diesel and heating oil, are the lowest on record for this time of year.

U.S. consumer debt escalates 8.3%

U.S. household debt climbed at the fastest annual pace since 2008 in the third quarter, with credit card balances surging even as the interest rates that lenders charge to consumers hit a multidecade high.

Households added $351 billion in overall debt last quarter, taking the total to $16.5 trillion, according to data released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Tuesday.

That’s an increase of 8.3% from a year earlier, the most since a 9.1% jump in the first quarter of 2008. The debt figures aren’t adjusted for inflation.

Most of the latest increase came in mortgage debt, by far the biggest liability on household balance sheets.

It rose by $282 billion in the third quarter, and by $1 trillion from a year earlier, to $11.7 trillion.

Mortgage and home-equity debt combined are up by $2 trillion since the pandemic began.

Credit-card debt also increased by the most in 20 years, with balances rising by 15% from a year earlier.

CdA Casino Resort Hotel opens eatery

Little Dragon Eatery has opened inside the Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort Hotel in Worley.

The Asian-inspired dishes are available for lunch and dinner. The restaurant is located in the space formerly occupied by the High Mountain Buffet, which closed in March 2020.

“We opened Little Dragon because it serves a frequently requested, popular-food type,” Laura Penney, CEO of the resort hotel, said in a news release.

The eatery is open Wednesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. It’s closed Sunday through Tuesday.

From staff and wire reports