EMISSIONS: More than 300 businesses, utilities and investment funds call on President Biden to commit to a 50% emissions cut from 2005 levels by 2030 as he prepares to announce a new target ahead of the White House’s climate summit. (New York Times, Inside Climate News)
INFRASTRUCTURE:
• Congressional Democrats aim to include new grid-focused Energy Department offices and investment tax credits for building out transmission lines in the White House’s infrastructure plan. (S&P Global)
• President Biden and a bipartisan group of senators fail to reconcile differences over clean energy and climate spending in the infrastructure package during an Oval Office meeting. (E&E News, subscription)
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SOLAR: Reporters detail how heavy government oversight kept them from visiting polysilicon factories in China’s Xinjiang province and investigating reports of human rights abuses in the region critical to solar panel development. (Bloomberg)
PIPELINES:
• The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s decision to evaluate a natural gas pipeline’s climate impact marks a “seismic shift” in the way future projects will be evaluated, analysts say. (E&E News, subscription)
• The Dakota Access pipeline’s developer asks a federal appeals court to reconsider its decision to pull a key permit for the project. (Bloomberg Law)
• The developer of the Keystone XL pipeline continues to pursue land rights, including through eminent domain, despite President Biden’s executive order rescinding its permit to cross the U.S.-Canadian border. (NET News)
OIL & GAS:
• A Republican and a Democratic senator will propose creating a $4.6 billion fund to clean up orphaned oil and gas wells as the House debates an $8 billion package to do the same. (E&E News, subscription)
• Three big oil and gas companies express support for restoring an Obama-era regulation limiting methane emissions. (E&E News, subscription)
• Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signs a bill banning cities and counties from regulating the sale of natural gas, while Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly allows a similar bill to become law in that state. (Iowa Capital Dispatch, Topeka Capital-Journal)
CLIMATE:
• A Democratic senator and representative introduce a “Climate Stewardship Act” that would reestablish the Civilian Conservation Corps and direct federal funding to conservation projects. (Insider NJ)
• State legislators effectively killed a major Maryland climate bill after they couldn’t compromise to reconcile differences between separate versions of the legislation, although some provisions were separately passed. (Maryland Matters)
• Eight counties in Alabama, Florida and Louisiana accounted for half of the $1.2 billion in claims paid by the federal flood insurance program in 2020. (E&E News, subscription)
OVERSIGHT: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott appoints new state regulators to the Public Utility Commission after the previous three quit or resigned after February’s calamitous winter storm and outages. (Dallas Morning News)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• The weekend’s settlement between two South Korean electric vehicle battery markers opens the door for Ford and Volkswagen to be more aggressive in making and marketing electric vehicles. (Barron’s)
• California is set to launch a $50 million program today adding sites to recharge and refuel zero-emission buses and trucks. (E&E News, subscription)
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TECHNOLOGY: A California environmental data mapping tool could help the Biden administration find and remediate polluted neighborhoods nationwide. (Reuters)
COMMENTARY: The White House’s upcoming climate summit will be a proving ground for President Biden’s leadership, meaning he must present “ambitious but also credible” ideas to limit the Earth’s warming, an editorial board writes. (New York Times)