TRANSPORTATION:
• A federal appeals court overturns a Trump administration action to indefinitely delay increased penalties for vehicles that violate federal fuel efficiency standards. (The Hill)
• Volkswagen isn’t making a serious effort to transform the company culture after its emissions cheating scandal and failed to hold executives accountable for wrongdoing, according to a report from a former U.S. prosecutor. (New York Times)
RENEWABLES: The debate over North Carolina’s clean energy transition took center stage at the state’s annual energy conference. Here are seven takeaways. (Southeast Energy News)
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WIND:
• How a family in Puerto Rico successfully started building and owning wind farms. (Bloomberg)
• President Trump has pushed fossil fuels but hasn’t been hostile toward offshore wind, and now the industry is expanding off several East Coast states. (Associated Press)
• Researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas develop a way to extract more power from wind turbines. (Science Daily)
SOLAR: Some South Carolina solar employees worry about job security after the legislature failed to pass a bill raising the state’s solar energy cap. (WSPA)
STORAGE:
• How energy storage could help prevent a supply/demand gap known as the “duck curve” in Massachusetts. (Greentech Media)
• Experts at a conference predict significant growth in the energy storage market in coming years. (RTO Insider)
BIOMASS: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt tells a group of Georgia forestry leaders that burning trees is carbon neutral, signaling a policy shift. (Washington Post)
CARBON CAPTURE: Installing carbon-storing technology at corn-ethanol refineries could advance the carbon capture and storage industry, according to a new analysis. (Washington Post)
OIL & GAS: More than 20 miles of shoreline at a Southeast Texas national wildlife refuge will be restored with $26 million from the Deepwater Horizon legal settlement. (Houston Chronicle)
COAL:
• A developer proposing to build the West Coast’s largest coal export terminal in Oregon says it will appeal a board’s rejection of permits for the project. (Portland Business Journal)
• We Energies customer groups seek to recoup any ongoing costs associated with operating a Wisconsin coal plant that closed this month. (Midwest Energy News)
• President of the National Mining Association Hal Quinn says his organization has lobbied hard to push pro-coal policies under the Trump administration. (The Hill)
EPA:
• Rep. Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey becomes the fourth House Republican to call on EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to step down. (The Hill)
• The White House says it still supports Pruitt as more ethics scandals unfold, with press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying he “has done a good job … particularly on deregulation.” (Politico)
• Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe played a key role in making the EPA the anti-regulation agency it is today. (The New Republic)
UTILITIES:
• FirstEnergy’s attempt to seek emergency relief for its coal and nuclear plants receives pushback from some in the Trump administration. (Bloomberg)
• FirstEnergy has reached a deal — subject to approval — between creditors and its subsidiaries that operate power plants in Pennsylvania and Ohio. (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)
• FirstEnergy profits skyrocket after its subsidiary’s bankruptcy filing. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
• Xcel Energy is pulling out of a Western utilities group, a move that will likely derail efforts by other Colorado utilities to join a regional transmission organization. (Denver Post)
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CLIMATE:
• With the price tag for extreme weather events mounting, who should pay for the death and destruction caused by climate change? (Sierra Magazine)
• A Minnesota appeals court allows pipeline protesters to use a “necessity defense” to argue they needed to stop the flow of oil to address climate change. (Minnesota Public Radio)
• A group of Republican attorneys general that has repeatedly sued the EPA is urging a federal court to dismiss San Francisco and Oakland’s climate change liability suits, saying the objections are “based in public policy, not law.” (Climate Liability News)
COMMENTARY:
• President Trump can make America great again and beat China without a trade war by making renewable energy a national priority. (USA Today)
• The Trump administration says the government needs to support struggling coal and nuclear plants to ensure grid reliability, but experts insist there is scant evidence of a resilience problem. (Axios)