TO READERS: U.S. Energy News will be taking a break for Memorial Day. The daily email digest will return on Tuesday, May 26.
PACT: Vermont’s governor announced Thursday his state will join Brazil, Canada and Germany—as well as California, Oregon and Washington state—in a commitment to significantly roll back greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. (The Barre Montpelier Times Argus)
SOLAR: Authorities in Hawaii’s capital, Honolulu, have been ordered to finance a $16 million solar system as a penalty for failing to curb air pollution from a city landfill site. (PV Tech)
SPILL: Tuesday’s oil spill on the Southern California coast has sparked calls for more restrictions on drilling and an inquiry into the cause of the accident. (EnergyWire)
COAL:
• Murray Energy is expected to announce layoffs of around 1,800 workers at nine locations today, a day after the company’s CEO said he expects coal industry bankruptcies are coming. (Dow Jones Business News; Pittsburgh Business Times)
• The U.S. Justice Department’s recent prosecution of three Duke Energy subsidiaries for improper handling of toxic coal ash marked the most significant federal crackdown on coal ash in history. (InsideClimate News)
CRUDE OIL: New York state regulators will deny a permit for a facility at the Port of Albany that critics say would make the port a hub for Canadian tar sands crude oil. (Associated Press)
PROPANE: With tougher emissions standards looming and the constant pressure to save money, propane has become increasingly attractive as an alternative to traditional fossil fuels for powering school buses. (The New York Times)
POLICY: Former Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers came down hard Thursday on North Carolina’s General Assembly for proposals that could gut the state’s solar and renewable-energy industry. (Triangle Business Journal)
OFFSHORE DRILLING: Florida’s Democrat U.S. senator introduced a bill Thursday that would extend the current moratorium on oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico through 2027. (The Hill)
PIPELINE SAFETY: Ten Senate Democrats implored President Obama Thursday to nominate a new head for the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration, which has not had a leader in seven months. (The Hill)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: In a 2009 executive order, President Obama called for 1 million plug-in vehicles on the road by 2015, but poor sales and lower gas prices defied him. (Bloomberg)
DIPLOMACY: The energy industry will determine whether Earth’s climate can be fixed, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday in a message to executives attending a Paris climate and business conference. (Bloomberg)
CARBON BENEFITS: More than 40 years of evidence from a mountain meadow shows that increasing carbon dioxide levels do not help plants and, in fact, make grasslands less productive. (The Daily Climate)
CARBON STORAGE: A study in New Mexico documents the first field evidence for the safe long-term storage of very large amounts of carbon dioxide in saline aquifers. (ScienceDaily)
KENTUCKY: The Kentucky Student Environmental Coalition is promoting legislation that would require the state’s regulated utilities to increase investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency. (WKMS)
DIVESTMENT: The California Democratic Party approved a sweeping resolution on Sunday to drop fossil fuel stocks from the state’s two major public pension funds, valued at about $500 billion. (InsideClimate News)
COMMENTARY: While the pairing of home batteries with solar power makes deep intuitive sense, the problem is that it doesn’t make financial sense. (Bloomberg)
PACT: Vermont’s governor announced Thursday his state will join Brazil, Canada and Germany—as well as California, Oregon and Washington state—in a commitment to significantly roll back greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. (The Barre Montpelier Times Argus)