OIL & GAS: The House Oversight committee chair moves to subpoena fossil fuel groups and companies after they failed to share documents at yesterday’s hearing on climate disinformation. (E&E News)
ALSO:
• Fossil fuel executives acknowledge their companies roles’ in accelerating climate change but insist oil and gas will be necessary for years into the clean energy transition. (New York Times)
• The oil and gas leaders also condemned Democrats’ allegations that their companies funded climate disinformation as Republicans maintained the hearing was unnecessary. (Inside Climate News, E&E News)
• Some observers say New York regulators’s refusal to issue permits for two gas-fired power plants spells the end of new fossil fuel plants in the state. (E&E News)
RECONCILIATION:
• President Biden’s latest reconciliation bill framework includes methane fees and clean energy tax incentives, blocks fossil fuel drilling and leasing in several areas, and is predicted to cut annual carbon emissions by about a sixth of their current levels. (Bloomberg, New York Times E&E News, Washington Post)
• House progressives say they’ll continue to withhold their votes from the bipartisan infrastructure package until their budget reconciliation bill is passed. (E&E News)
CLIMATE:
• Centuries of colonization and U.S. government action has forced Native Americans onto a tiny fraction of their historical territory, and largely into areas with climates that are becoming uninhabitable as the world warms, a study finds. (New York Times)
• The leader of the House’s conservative climate caucus says the group will back President Biden as he tries to get China and Russia to sharply cut emissions but maintains that natural gas will remain necessary. (Inside Climate News)
WIND:
• The U.S. Interior Department announces it will soon offer offshore wind lease sales off the North Carolina and Gulf coasts, and will start the environmental review of a Massachusetts project this year. (E&E News)
• Officials racing to build offshore wind projects like Virginia’s 2,640 MW project with Dominion Energy tout the higher number of onshore jobs that come with them. (Inside Climate News)
COAL: Southwestern Electric Power Company will close a 650 MW coal-fired power plant in Louisiana by the end of the year, contributing to a total of 6,100 MW in coal plants that will be retired or converted in 2021. (The Advocate, Reuters)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Eleven Republican governors urge Congress to reject an infrastructure bill provision that would give a $4,500 incentive for buying a union-made electric vehicle. (Detroit Free Press)
GRID: U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm urges a ‘no’ vote on the upcoming ballot initiative opposing the Central Maine Power corridor. (Bangor Daily News)
COMMENTARY:
• A solar company executive sounds the alarm that some utilities are using ratepayers’ money to fund fossil fuel-defending trade groups and suggests regulations to stop it. (Canary Media)
• Democrats’ budget bill needs to include a tax credit that allows for the retrofitting and rehabilitation of existing hydropower dams and removal of dams that are no longer necessary, a renewable energy CEO writes. (Utility Dive)