SOLAR: A bill being considered by New Jersey legislators would boost large solar projects by opening up farmland, reversing a previous policy that avoided those locations. (NJ Spotlight)

ALSO: Vermont regulators fine the developer of the state’s largest solar project $57,500 for violations of its permit during construction of the facility. (VT Digger)

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ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: The director of the Massachusetts governor’s office for environmental justice says her goal is to get a contact person for equity issues in every executive office. (WBUR)

RENEWABLE ENERGY: An environmental group releases a plan for economic recovery in Pennsylvania based on nature-based tourism, agriculture and renewable energy. (StateImpact Pennsylvania)

CLIMATE: A Massachusetts House committee clears a suite of climate-related bills for final action this week before the session wraps up. (State House News Service)

OFFSHORE WIND:
• Massachusetts backs away from a proposal to create an independent network of transmission interconnections for multiple offshore wind farms, citing the insufficient size of its projects. (E&E News, subscription required)
• While only seven wind turbines currently exist off the East Coast, advocates see hundreds more in coming years as projects begin construction. (E&E News, subscription required)

EMISSIONS: A Pennsylvania state senator says a consultant hired by the state to do climate modeling for an assessment of joining a regional emissions compact has a conflict of interest by also endorsing membership. (Daily American)

TRANSMISSION: Current and former Maine legislators write to Hydro-Quebec demanding it stay out of state elections and cease funding efforts to defeat a referendum designed to thwart its power line to export electricity to Massachusetts. (CommonWealth Magazine)

GRID: New England’s grid operator analyzes power use for the first six weeks of the summer and finds no significant change from models run last year to predict demand, despite COVID-19. (RTO Insider, subscription required)

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CYBERSECURITY: The New York Power Authority and Siemens partner to create an innovation center to develop and test cybersecurity solutions for the power industry. (Niagara Publications)

COMMENTARY:
• A social justice advocate says a Clean Energy Equity office in New Jersey would help provide economic opportunity for underserved communities by providing worker training. (NJ Spotlight)
• A Pennsylvania legislator says policies like joining a regional emissions compact undermine the state’s economic legacy of providing jobs in energy and manufacturing. (Observer-Reporter)

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.