OIL & GAS: Range Resources pleads no contest and pays a $150,000 fine on charges that it hid chemical spills at two western Pennsylvania fracking sites. (StateImpact Pennsylvania)

ALSO:
• Federal officials are close to reaching a $350,000 settlement with an oil tank operator with facilities throughout New England that one environmental group says is too lenient. (ecoRI)
• A group of engineers and economists write to three governors saying that the promise of ethane cracker plants like one under construction outside Pittsburgh often falls short. (The Business Journal)

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POWER PLANTS: The owner of New England’s largest fossil fuel plant wants to keep operating after its subsidies end in 2024 as residents want it to close as the owner had previously agreed. (Boston Globe)

OFFSHORE WIND: Northeastern states are confronted by their own aggressive climate goals that rely on a massive buildout of offshore wind while the Trump administration is hostile to the technology. (E&E News, subscription required) 

CLIMATE: As the current session winds down, Vermont legislators were poised to enact major climate initiatives this year until the coronavirus pandemic hit. (VT Digger)

CLEAN ENERGY: The head of New York’s agency to implement the state’s clean energy goals leaves to take a private sector job in Boston. (E&E News, subscription required) 

WASTE-TO-ENERGY: Maine environmental officials want 115 towns that sent their garbage to a waste-to energy plant that closed due to financial difficulties to now use a different trash-burning facility that produces electricity. (Bangor Daily News)

STORAGE: Construction begins at a storage project on Cape Cod that is expected to provide three hours of backup power in the summer if an outage occurs. (Cape Cod Times CapeCod.com) 

REGULATION: New York regulators begin a proceeding to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the state’s consumers and utilities. (Niagara Frontier Publications)

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EMISSIONS: Maine receives more than $2.5 million from the latest auction proceeds from a regional cap-and-trade emissions compact. (Associated Press)

COMMENTARY:
• A New Hampshire legislator says a “shadowy” group purporting to represent ratepayers is seeking to harm renewable energy efforts in the state. (Keene Sentinel)
• The director of a university offshore wind graduate program says Massachusetts needs to consider transmission development for its entire lease area in federal waters instead of on a case-by-case project basis. (CommonWealth Magazine)
• New York City’s former transportation commissioner says the risk of taking transit during the COVID-19 pandemic has been overstated. (The Atlantic)

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Bill Opalka

Bill is a freelance journalist based outside Albany, New York. As a former New England correspondent for RTO Insider, he has written about energy for newspapers, magazines and other publications for more than 20 years. He has an extensive career in trade publications and newspapers, mostly focused on the utility sector, covering such issues as restructuring, renewable energy and consumer affairs. Bill covers Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire and also compiles the Northeast Energy News daily email digest.