UTILITIES: Arizona’s largest utility agrees to pay $24 million to roughly 225,000 ratepayers for overcharging after the utility’s online calculation tool gave incorrect recommendations on cheapest available plans. (Associated Press) 

OIL & GAS:
• The EPA orders two oil and gas companies to pay $1.9 million for oil and produced water spills to Wyoming surface waters. (Wyoming Tribune)
• A San Francisco-based activist investment firm calls for Exxon to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. (Bloomberg)

GRID:
• Though California, Oregon, and Texas have taken different approaches to energy, all three states have a “shared dilemma” from extreme weather events that crashed their power grids. (Politico, KGW)
• Utility and grid experts say Arizona is unlikely to have a widespread electric grid failure even with an extended period of extreme heat. (Associated Press)
• Many homes in a remote Alaska Native village still lack running water after a power outage earlier this month caused pipes to freeze. (Anchorage Daily News)

ELECTRIFICATION:
• Documents show the American Gas Association is actively involved in state-level bills to block municipal natural gas bans, despite denials to the contrary. (NPR)
• New research indicates California’s power prices are so high the state could struggle to persuade people to electrify their homes, and suggests income-based ratemaking as an alternative. (San Francisco Chronicle, Greentech Media)

EQUITY: An advocate with an Oakland, California racial and economic justice group says many electric vehicle subsidies and market incentives are directed towards those who can afford them, rather than the communities most impacted by pollution and poverty. (Salon)

PUBLIC LANDS:
• Interior Secretary nominee Deb Haaland promises to “strike the right balance” in restoring and protecting federal lands, and if confirmed faces resolving problems resulting from the Trump administration’s pro-development agenda. (Associated Press, Inside Climate News)
• Conservation groups are pressuring Republican Montana U.S. Sen. Steve Daines to confirm Haaland. (Billings Gazette)

SOLAR:
• New Mexico officials promote an oil and gas company’s 8 MW solar array in the Permian Basin as the type of carbon-reducing initiative companies could pursue under a statewide “clean-fuel standard.” (Albuquerque Journal)
• Opponents of a Nevada solar project say it will impact the view of a 1969 art installation near the site. (The Art Newspaper)

TRANSPORTATION:
• A proposed Utah bill that would increase electric and hybrid vehicle registration fees fails to pass the state’s House. (Deseret News)
• A Colorado county is preparing an electric vehicle readiness plan. (Summit Daily)
• Advocates say that Arizona finishing 24th and 25th, respectively, in two new reports evaluating states’ efforts to boost electric vehicles proves the state has much more work to do to match California, which ranked at the top of both. (KOLD)

COMMENTARY:
• A policy analyst says natural gas and nuclear energy should be included in Oregon’s energy resources portfolio. (Forest Grove News-Times)
• A writer says putting unemployed miners and drillers to work reclaiming closed coal mines and plugging up abandoned or low-producing oil and gas wells would help Western communities’ economic recovery. (Steamboat Pilot & Today)

Lisa is a Lenape and Nanticoke Native American freelance journalist, editor and writer currently based in the U.K. She has more than two decades’ experience working in corporate communications and print and digital media. She compiles the Western Energy News daily email digest. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Temple University; her specializations include data journalism and visualization. She is a member of the Native American Journalists Association, Investigative Reporters & Editors, Society of Professional Journalists, and the National Union of Journalists (U.K.).