OIL & GAS: U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin orders the Navy to drain and permanently close the Red Hill fuel storage facility in Hawaii that contaminated thousands of residents’ drinking water. (Associated Press)

ALSO:
• Exxon says it will boost Permian Basin oil production by 100,000 barrels per day as the Biden administration bans Russian petroleum imports. (Politico)
• ConocoPhillips evacuates employees from an Alaska oil drilling project after detecting an underground methane leak. (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)

GRID: Pacific Gas & Electric and General Motors team up to explore ways to use electric vehicle batteries to provide backup power to homes and the grid and “make power outages invisible.” (Canary Media)

SOLAR:
• A renewable energy developer and Sacramento’s utility plan to construct northern California’s largest solar plus storage facility on private agricultural land. (news release)
• Two Utah utilities launch a community solar program. (KSL)

CLIMATE:
• Former California Gov. Jerry Brown urges the Biden administration to resist calls to increase oil production, saying it would “go against climate goals and climate is like war: If we don’t handle it, people are going to die.” (Associated Press)
• Washington state lawmakers pass a bill requiring the state to consult with local tribes before spending climate change funds on projects that could affect tribal resources. (RTO Insider, subscription)

EFFICIENCY:
• A southern California city plans to replace thousands of light fixtures with more efficient LED bulbs and use the savings to fund electric vehicle charger and solar panel installations. (Smart Cities Dive)
• A reporter shares how high utility bills led him to weatherize his California home. (Bloomberg)

STORAGE: A California coalition of community choice aggregators enter into a contract to construct a 50 MW/400 MWh lithium-ion battery storage project. (Energy Storage News)

TRANSPORTATION:
• California advocacy groups call on Gov. Gavin Newsom to require 80% zero-emission electric vehicle sales by 2030 as opposed to the current goal of 61%. (Reuters)
• The U.S. EPA awards $540,000 to four Colorado school districts to replace 27 diesel school buses with low-emission ones. (news release)

NUCLEAR: A Wyoming bill repealing some nuclear waste storage regulations to expedite development of a Bill Gates-backed nuclear reactor advances, though it doesn’t include a proposed ban on using Russian fuel. (WyoFile) 

BIOFUEL: Hawaii environmentalists oppose a proposed state bill that would require 55% of renewable energy to be “firm” rather than intermittent, saying it would benefit a proposed wood-burning power plant. (Honolulu Star-Advertiser)

COMMENTARY:
• A California columnist says the state has wasted $166 million to construct hydrogen fuel pumps as widespread adoption of hydrogen vehicles becomes more unlikely. (Canary Media)
• Capturing and marketing rather than flaring or venting methane from oil wells can bolster U.S. energy security by obviating the need for Russian gas, a New Mexico environmental advocate says. (Santa Fe New Mexican)

Jonathan hails from southwestern Colorado and has been writing about the land, cultures, and communities of the Western United States for more than two decades. He compiles the Western Energy News digest. He is the author of three books, a contributing editor at High Country News, and the editor of the Land Desk, an e-newsletter that provides coverage and context on issues critical to the West.