OIL & GAS: Over 60 local elected officials from Western states tell the U.S. Senate not to kill Obama-era regulations on methane emissions from oil and gas sites. (Denver Business Journal)

ALSO:
• There is limited evidence that living near oil and gas drilling sites is dangerous for peoples’ health, according to a review by Colorado’s health department. (Denver Post)
• A fossil fuel industry lobbyist warns lawmakers that opposition to fracking is threatening the oil industry in New Mexico. (Associated Press)
• An energy company pays $1.2 million for oil and gas violations that contaminated water supplies in Pennsylvania. (Penn Live)

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EPA: Republicans voice skepticism over a reported Trump administration plan to cut nearly a quarter of the EPA’s $8.1 billion budget. (The Hill)

PIPELINES:
• The company behind the Keystone XL pipeline suspends a lawsuit filed against the United States that sought $15 billion in damages related to the project, which was rejected by the Obama administration. (Reuters)
• A judge plans to rule within the next week on whether to withdraw an easement for the final portion of the Dakota Access Pipeline, offering hope to Native Americans who have been launching legal challenges to block the project. (Reuters, Grist)
• A North Dakota tribe asks federal agents for help removing pipeline protesters from their reservation. (Huffington Post)
• President Trump says he created “tens of thousands of jobs” by clearing the way for the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, but those numbers are misleading. (Los Angeles Times)

NUCLEAR: State lawmakers demand to know how the closure of a nuclear plant outside New York City could affect electric bills, jobs and the power supply. (New York Times)

BIOFUEL: The U.S. Renewable Fuels Association says it was notified that the president will sign an executive order shifting the burden of combining biofuels with gasoline away from refiners, but the White House says “there is no ethanol executive order in the works.” (Reuters)

RENEWABLE ENERGY: Most additions to the U.S. electric grid last year were utility-scale wind and solar farms, according to the Department of Energy. (FuelFix)

SOLAR:
• A Kentucky lawmaker says he is “shocked” by industry pushback to his solar bill and says he plans to modify the bill to address their concerns; utilities strongly support the measure. (Louisville Courier-Journal, Lane Report)
• How major weather events hurt solar generation in 2016. (Greentech Media)

WIND:
• The Danish company Vestas Wind Systems receives an order for 174 wind turbines, which will be manufactured in Colorado. (Denver Business Journal)
• Clean energy advocates are praising a Wisconsin utility for building a 66-megawatt wind farm in Iowa. (Midwest Energy News)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Scientists at the Illinois Institute of Technology are working on a liquid “flow” battery that can store 1.5 times the energy of lithium-ion batteries and recharge a car in the amount of time it takes to fill a gas tank. (Midwest Energy News)

CLIMATE:
• A rediscovered film shows that Shell knew about the risks of climate change in 1991. (Guardian)
• A House hearing on the social cost of carbon devolves into a debate on the existence of man-made climate change. (Washington Post)

COMMENTARY:
• A cap-and-trade system operating in nine Northeastern states is a successful policy model, but it does little to lower carbon emissions. (Vox)
• A California bill to mandate 100 percent renewable energy by 2045 could shut out other decarbonization pathways. (Greentech Media)