| INTERIOR: President Trump will nominate a veteran oil and gas lobbyist to head the U.S. Interior Department. (Washington Post)
PIPELINES:
• Four climate change activists are arrested after attempting to shut off an Enbridge pipeline in northern Minnesota. (Minnesota Public Radio)
• Landowners along the route of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia are concerned about the use of eminent domain to take their property. (Reuters)
***SPONSORED LINK: The 12th annual Storage Week, February 25-27 in San Francisco, is the development and finance business hub at the forefront of behind-the-meter and grid-connected storage system deployments. Join energy storage executives and active financiers as they explore the road to bankable projects!***
OIL & GAS:
• The University of Houston launches a program to encourage scientists to help the oil and gas industry to develop low-carbon strategies. (Houston Chronicle)
• The East Baton Rouge Parish school board rejects Exxon’s request for tax breaks, setting off a fierce debate in Louisiana. (New York Times)
• North Dakota officials issue a water permit for a planned $800 million oil refinery near Theodore Roosevelt National Park. (Associated Press)
TRANSPORTATION: States look to the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative as a model to cut transportation emissions. (Energy News Network)
WIND: The developer of an 800 MW wind project off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard asks the federal government to halt New England’s annual power-capacity auction until regulators allow it to participate. (Bloomberg)
SOLAR:
• Solar installer was the fastest growing job in eight states over the past two years, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Yahoo Finance)
• Former employees paint a gloomy picture of conditions at Tesla’s Gigafactory II plant in Buffalo, where the company’s solar roofs are manufactured. (WIVB)
• A new tax policy in Vermont could make it harder to pair farming and solar. (Energy News Network)
COAL:
• Tennessee Valley Authority made a deal with the contractor accused of poisoning Kingston coal ash spill cleanup workers that could put ratepayers on the hook for legal damages. (Knoxville News Sentinel)
• The fate of South Carolina’s largest coal-fired power plant is uncertain as state leaders decide on the sale of utility Santee Cooper. (Post and Courier)
NUCLEAR:
• Pennsylvania lawmakers circulate memos encouraging support for bills designed to help the state’s struggling nuclear plants. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
• A South Carolina representative calls on Dominion Energy to repay taxpayers $1,000 per household as a partial refund for a failed nuclear station. (WCBD)
BIOFUELS: Biofuels group Growth Energy sues the U.S. EPA over the agency’s use of exemptions to the federal renewable fuel mandate. (Reuters)
***SPONSORED LINK: The Solar Power Finance & Investment Summit, March 19-21 in San Diego, is recognized as the leading gathering place for senior-level solar and financial executives to network and set their deal-making calendars for the upcoming year. See you at the 2019 summit!***
POLITICS:
• Democrats from oil-rich states are being pulled between the drilling industry and their party’s growing call for carbon-free energy. (Houston Chronicle)
• Green New Deal sponsors describe the legislation to colleagues as an “economic mobilization at a scale not seen since World War II.” (Bloomberg)
COMMENTARY:
• The authors of an upcoming book on the clean energy transition offer Congress a wishlist for how they can accelerate the transition. (New York Times)
• Small farms could heal the environment and prosper under a Green New Deal, an Iowa anthropologist and clean power advocate write. (McClatchy) |
