ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A California bill could require 15 percent of all new automobiles sold in the state to be emission-free within a decade. (Associated Press)
WIND:
• Wyoming lawmakers’s effort to raise the state’s wind energy taxes could knock one of the world’s largest wind farms “out of existence.” (Los Angeles Times)
• The Interior Department is preparing to lease more than 122,000 acres off the coast of North Carolina for wind power. (The Hill)
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CARBON TAX: Activists in Washington are pushing for one of the world’s most far-reaching taxes on fossil fuels, starting at $15 a ton. (Seattle Times)
UTILITIES: One of the country’s major carbon dioxide emitters, NRG Energy, struggles to clean up its act. (New York Times)
POLITICS:
• Anti-fracking initiatives proposed for Colorado’s November ballot could split the state’s Democrats and put Hillary Clinton in a tough spot. (Politico)
• The person the next president may tap to be Secretary of Energy is a “wild card” with “no obvious tradition,” say several sources familiar with the process. (Greenwire)
OIL & GAS:
• New figures show double-digit growth in the rig count in West Texas’ Permian Basin, totaling 189 active drilling sites. (San Antonio Business Journal)
• Montana oil and gas companies may soon have to notify everyone within a quarter mile of a proposed drilling site in order to get a permit. (Billings Gazette)
• State officials say more than 20,000 gallons of oil has seeped out of a North Dakota hillside since July. (ThinkProgress)
SOLAR:
• A Colorado organization is training unemployed coal, oil and gas industry workers in various fields within the solar industry. (Denver Post)
• A nonprofit could provide a national “fiscally conservative” model for low-income energy assistance by creating a community solar project for a Minnesota tribe. (Midwest Energy News)
RENEWABLE ENERGY: Shareholders of renewable energy developer SunEdison can’t be represented by an official committee in bankruptcy court, says a U.S. judge. (Reuters)
COAL:
• An Oregon judge says state regulators acted within their authority when they rejected a proposed coal terminal that would funnel millions of tons of American coal to Asia each year. (Associated Press)
• The Bureau of Land Management will lease a 6,100-acre coal tract in Utah despite a three-year national moratorium on any new federal leases for coal, saying the decision was made before the suspension came into effect. (Deseret News)
• Utah environmental regulators say the Price River is safe for recreation and irrigation after a storm washed 2,700 cubic yards of coal ash into the river last week. (Salt Lake Tribune)
REGULATION: Officials in Spokane, Washington, backpedal on a measure that would make shipping oil and coal through downtown a civil infraction with a fine of up to $261 per rail car. (Spokesman-Review)
CLIMATE CHANGE: President Obama plans to debut new tools for combating climate change before he leaves office, including a second round of fuel efficiency standards for heavy-duty vehicles. (The Hill)
EMISSIONS: The EPA won’t investigate a former agency adviser who has been accused of underreporting methane leaks. (InsideClimate News)
COMMENTARY:
• Donald Trump’s promise to save the coal industry is removed from “tough economic reality” and does more harm than good. (Time)
• Plans to build a nuclear power plant in southeastern Utah will fizzle without help from environmentalists thanks to budgetary problems and years of regulatory hurdles. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Nuclear waste is likely to remain in storage at commercial reactor sites for the indefinite future, leading to unsafe conditions and higher costs. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
• Clean truck standards implemented five years ago are an enormous success, but more can still be done. (Climate 411)