OIL INVESTORS:
• The world’s big energy groups have shelved $200 billion of spending on new projects in an urgent round of cost-cutting aimed at protecting investors’ dividends as oil prices slumps for a second time this year. (Financial Times)
• Speculators’ conviction that oil will rally weakened at the fastest pace in three years, just before futures tumbled in New York into a bear market. (Bloomberg)
OIL RIGS: The number of U.S. oil-drilling rigs in operation rose last week to 659, 21 more than the previous week. (FuelFix)
CLEAN POWER PLAN:
• Fourteen states, led by West Virginia, want all 17 judges on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to hear the case that a three-judge panel rejected last month against the EPA’s Clean Power Plan for existing power plants. (The Hill)
• Mississippi’s Republican governor told the EPA that his state does not see how it can “reasonably” comply with the Clean Power Plan rule limiting carbon emissions from power plants. (The Hill)
• Michigan researchers say the state’s best path to compliance with the federal Clean Power Plan will start with energy efficiency and depend largely on a mix of natural gas and renewables. (Midwest Energy News)
BIOMASS: EPA officials have hinted that they will accept some forms of biomass burning for energy as a way for states to comply with the Clean Power Plan. (ClimateWire)
FRACKING: The nation’s first survey of fracking well depths shows one in six wells fracked less than one mile below the surface, at the same depth of water sources. (InsideClimate News)
REGULATION: Renewed hunts for oil in sensitive Florida ecosystems have environmental groups raising questions about the state’s regulation of the oil and gas industry. (Associated Press)
SOLAR: An emerging battle in the renewable-energy wars pits “big solar” against “little solar”—between utility-scale arrays and panels on rooftops—as utilities embrace the potential of power from the sun. (The Denver Post)
STORAGE: General Electric wants to be a “sizable” player in the market for systems to store energy, in which the company expects to quadruple its investment to $6 billion by 2020, a senior official said. (Reuters)
CLIMATE: Thirteen of America’s largest companies are joining President Obama to announce today an array of policies and $140 billion in new low-carbon investments meant to curb the effects of climate change. (The Hill)
PRESIDENTIAL RACE: Hillary Clinton pledged Sunday that, as president, she would put the U.S. on a path toward generating enough renewable energy to power every home in the country by 2027. (CNN)
ENERGY POLICY: Billionaire donor Tom Steyer announced Friday that his super PAC NextGen Climate wants all candidates and elected officials to outline a plan to get more than half of all of America’s power from clean energy by 2030 (National Journal).