CAP-AND-TRADE: California lawmakers vote to extend the state’s cap-and-trade program until 2030 with bipartisan support from eight Republicans. (Los Angeles Times)
CLIMATE: Three California municipalities file lawsuits against 37 of the world’s top fossil fuel companies, saying they should pay for damages caused by climate change. (Associated Press)
SOLAR:
• Shrinking cash incentives for solar in Oregon are likely to coincide with the expiration of a $6,000 residential solar tax credit. (Portland Business Journal)
• Tesla CEO Elon Musk tells a meeting of governors his plan for powering the country entirely with solar, saying “you only need about 100 miles by 100 miles of solar panels to power the entire United States.” (Inverse)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Oil producers and researchers are forecasting the dramatic adoption of EVs due to falling battery costs, but automakers are less optimistic. (Greentech Media)
• Automakers, regulators, legislators and utilities are increasingly working together on various incentives to boost sales of electric vehicles. (E&E News)
COAL:
• President Trump tells a crowd that the U.S. gained 45,000 mining jobs, but there’s only evidence that 800 coal mining jobs have been created since he took office. (NBC)
• A Tennessee lawmaker sends a letter to regulators asking why they believe toxins found under a coal plant in Memphis are not affecting drinking water. (Associated Press)
• A federal judge ruled that Dominion Energy must submit a revised plan for dealing with coal ash pollution from a Virginia plant and perform at least two years of environmental testing. (Associated Press)
• Energy Secretary Rick Perry publicly praises clean coal, but has proposed to slash the budget of the DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy — which focuses on researching technologies to use fossil fuels more cleanly — by 54 percent. (New York Times)
OIL & GAS:
• A widow in Colorado is fighting a ConocoPhillips subsidiary for rights to what she says is her family’s land. (Denver Post)
• The American Petroleum Institute launches a campaign to attract new millennial workers to the oil industry. (Bloomberg)
• A federal judge dismisses a lawsuit that aimed to stop coal and oil trains from traveling through Spokane, Washington. (Spokesman-Review)
PIPELINES:
• Energy industry consultants say there isn’t enough U.S. demand for all the natural gas that would come from pipeline projects in Appalachia, which would extend the country’s fossil fuel habit by half a century. (Center for Public Integrity)
• The Rover gas pipeline being constructed in Ohio and Michigan continues to face scrutiny from state and federal regulators over spills of drilling mud, as well as mounting concerns from landowners. (Midwest Energy News)
POLLUTION: Treated fracking wastewater has contaminated a Pennsylvania watershed with radium and endocrine disrupters, according to a recent study. (Yale Environment 360)
NUCLEAR: Oregon-based NuScale Energy is working to develop small nuclear reactors, which could pave the way for reducing the industry’s up-front costs and risks. (MIT Technology Review)
COMMENTARY:
• Work should be either be restarted on Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site, or communities should work together to find solutions for where to store nuclear waste, says the editorial board of the Washington Post.
• A leaked draft of the Department of Energy’s controversial grid study is full of “inconvenient truths” for the Trump administration, including the finding that coal and nuclear plants aren’t economical, says the Founding Editor of Climate Progress. (ThinkProgress)
• The final conclusions of the DOE’s grid study will reveal how much power a Koch-backed think tank has over fossil fuel policy, says a writer for ThinkProgress.
• An attorney and activist explains why a mostly black community in the path of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is “Virginia’s Standing Rock.” (Huffington Post)