POLICY: During his nearly three-year tenure as Energy Secretary, Rick Perry delayed clean energy grants, slow-walked hiring, and left clean energy programs understaffed even as Congress ordered more spending. (Houston Chronicle)
ALSO:
• Federal stimulus legislation passed during the 2009 recession played a significant role in advancing clean energy, in contrast to the bills being passed in response to coronavirus today. (Los Angeles Times)
• Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam signs a major clean energy bill into law and commits the state to joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. (WDBJ)
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WIND: Massachusetts is poised to be a part of an economic boom created by offshore wind, and activists want to ensure that low-income communities and people of color share in the prosperity. (Energy News Network)
PIPELINES: Atlantic Coast Pipeline opponents hope the project will be stopped by a new Virginia law requiring regulators to consider whether pipeline capacity is needed for reliability before approving projects. (Energy News Network)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Ohio electric vehicle bills are among state legislation on hold across the country as lawmakers grapple with the coronavirus. (Energy News Network)
• A California bus operator has saved an average of 40% on monthly power bills since hiring a professional electric bus fleet-charging service. (Greentech Media)
UTILITIES:
• Several utility rate cases have been extended or delayed in about a dozen states as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. (S&P Global)
• Despite extra federal funding, Tennessee electric utilities continue to cut off service to families who can’t pay during the coronavirus pandemic. (HuffPost)
GRID:
• The pandemic is changing power usage, with the “duck curve” becoming common in areas with lots of renewables like California. (Grist)
• New York’s grid operator says electricity demand in New York City fell by as much as 18% in the first weeks of the pandemic. (Greentech Media)
COAL:
• Mining and public health experts raise alarms about operating coal mines during the pandemic, which could put miners and communities at risk. (Beckley Register-Herald)
• Chicago officials are furious following the demolition of a smokestack at a former coal plant, which covered the surrounding Little Village neighborhood in dust on Saturday. (Chicago Sun-Times)
OIL & GAS:
• U.S. lenders are preparing to seize assets and become operators of oil and gas fields to avoid loan losses as energy companies go bankrupt. (Reuters)
• As oil prices collapse, Pennsylvania faces a looming crisis of abandoned wells in the Allegheny National Forest. (Associated Press)
• A decade after Deepwater Horizon, the federal office that regulates offshore drilling is marred by staff distrust and management problems. (E&E News, subscription)
• BP’s $5.6 billion deal to take over Hilcorp’s Prudhoe Bay, Alaska assets is in jeopardy because of plummeting oil prices. (Wall Street Journal, subscription)
CLIMATE:
• Advocates pushing for a carbon tax say it would be a fair way to compensate tribes for the disproportionate climate change impacts they are experiencing. (Reuters)
• Baltimore and Rhode Island climate lawsuits against oil companies allege deceptive behavior in their attempts to mischaracterize their knowledge of climate impacts of fossil fuels. (DeSmog)
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NUCLEAR: As more Plant Vogtle workers become sick with COVID-19, Southern Company says the project’s progress may be disrupted. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
COMMENTARY: The coronavirus pandemic showed us a world without smog; a columnist asks whether electric cars could do so permanently. (Wall Street Journal, subscription)